French Surgeon Handed Maximum Term For Abusing Children For Decades

Questions have been asked how he was able to stay in a job after a 2005 conviction for possession of child sexual abuse material (Credit: AFP)

A French court on Wednesday gave the maximum 20-year jail term to a surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, during more than two decades.

The three-month trial of Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has brought to light the extent of his crimes and the suffering of his victims but also raised questions of why more was not done sooner to stop him.