A former surgeon has been sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison after being found guilty of raping or sexually abusing 299 victims – most of whom were his child patients – in France’s largest-ever child abuse trial.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, was accused of a pattern of violence spanning more than three decades, between 1989 and 2014, committed against 158 boys and 141 girls. The survivors were aged 11 on average and alone in their hospital rooms when he attacked them, with some unconscious at the time and so having no memory of the assaults.
