Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, faces charges of sexual violence against 299 victims in hospitals in France and his ex wife, Marie-France Le Scouarnec, has denied any knowledge of the crimes
The ex-wife of a surgeon in France accused of hundreds of rapes of young children has described them as “liars”, including a niece she called “devious”.
Joel Le Scouarnec , 74, faces charges of sexual violence against 299 victims with an average age of 11. The monster is on trial at the Morbihan Criminal Court, in the Brittany town of Vanne, where horrific details of his alleged crimes against 158 males and 141 females are emerging.
The children were allegedly attacked in hospitals and other medical centres across France , with his youngest victim just one-year-old. During cross-examination on Wednesday evening, his wife Marie-France Le Scouarnec, 71, denied any knowledge of his criminal activities.
She also accused some of her own nieces of “lying” about the crimes committed against them. She said of one: “Until she was an adult, she was always hanging around my husband’s neck. She was a devious little girl.”
She refused to look at photos taken by her husband, including one of a niece naked and sleeping. Lead prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger said it was “necessary for her to face up to reality”.
Madame Le Scouarnec told him: “I want to be able to sleep at night. It’s so grotesque. It’s unthinkable, it’s inconceivable my husband could have done all this. If I had known I would have dragged my husband straight to the police.”
Asked if she had a word of compassion for the victims, she failed to answer, but instead said she was raped herself as a child, and also by a man in 2013. Le Scouarnec showed no emotion when his ex-wife said: “I think he should stay in prison after everything he has done.”
The couple separated in 2017, after Le Scouarnec was arrested and charged, and their divorce was finalised last year. Earlier on Wednesday, it was claimed Madame Le Scouarnec covered up her husband’s crimes because “she loved his salary”, and spent her days taking lovers and going to aquaerobics.
Patrick Le Scouarnec, the 70-year-old brother of the defendant, told the court she was a liar, saying: “She was aware of her husband’s actions and she did nothing…I wonder if she loved her husband for money or for love. Quite honestly, I think it was mostly for his salary.”
In December 2020, Le Scouarnec was sentenced to 15 years for the sexual abuse of four girls including a six-year-old neighbour, a four-year-old patient, and two of his own nieces, who were also four when the abuse started. Le Scouarnec faces another 20-year sentence if found guilty again.
Le Scouarnec is said to have kept meticulous diaries detailing the names, ages and types of abuse he carried out over a period spanning more than a quarter of a century. His own words form the backbone of the prosecution’s case against him, with the sexual predator already serving a 15 year sentence after being found guilty of abusing four children in 2020.
The diaries reveal a horrific brag on the surgeon’s birthday each year. After recording his age, he would write: “I am a paedophile, and I am proud of it.”
The trial continues, and is expected to conclude in June.