Joel Le Scouarnec, a paedophile surgeon, has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for assaulting hundreds of patients for around 25 years.
According to BBC, the former surgeon was jailed after he admitted to sexually abusing 299 patients, mostly children, between 1989 and 2014.
The 74-year-old, who admitted the charges in March, stood emotionless with a blank face in a black dress when Judge Aude Burési delivered the verdict of the maximum term in jail.
The judge said that the court has noted that the surgeon mainly targeted the patients who were sick, vulnerable and under anaesthesia or sedation.
Since Le Scouarnec has already served seven years, he must serve at least two-thirds of the sentence to become eligible for parole by 2030.
It is worth noting that the surgeon is already serving a 15-year prison sentence after being found guilty of raping and sexually abusing four children, including two of his nieces.
Furthermore, as per French law, sentences run concurrently, which means that Le Scouarnec would be required to serve only the additional years (five years) after completing the first sentence.
Calls to change the law
Amélie Lévêque, one of Le Scouarnec's victims, expressed, “To think one day he could walk down the street, see people – that upsets me. We (the victims) no longer have a normal life while they're giving him back that life, and that disgusts me."
Francesca Satta, a lawyer for some of the victims, argued that 20 years is very little for the number of victims in the trial and urged, “It is time for the law to change so we can have more appropriate sentences."
Solène Podevin Favre, president of an advocacy group for child victims of incest and other sexual crimes, also expressed shock at the verdict and disappointment at the fact that that post-sentence preventive detention was not imposed.
She said, “We might have expected to be less lenient... It’s the maximum sentence, certainly. But it’s the least we could have hoped for. Yet in six years, he could potentially be released. It’s staggering.”
The trial for the sexual abuse of 158 boys and 141 girls with an average age of 11 years old begins in February.
As per his lawyer, Maxime Tessier Le Scouarnec, who has been dubbed the most prolific paedophile in France, had no intention of appealing.
