A French doctor who is a retired surgeon pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 299 people, the majority of which were children, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The case is considered to be the largest pedophilia case in the history of France. Judge Aude Buresi said that the defendant committed predation on victims who were most vulnerable, which is when they were sick in the hospital.
French Doctor Sentenced to 20-Year Imprisonment
The judge also barred the defendant, Joel Le Scouarnec, from being able to practice medicine or have contact with minors. He is required to serve two-thirds of his 20-year sentence before being eligible for parole.
During the former surgeon's trial, the public was shown massive gaps in the legal and health administrative bureaucracies. These ultimately failed to take seriously one clear warning sign about the case.
The doctor was convicted of downloading child abuse imagery and given a four-month suspended sentence by a French court in 2005. Despite this, he was still allowed to treat children unsupervised until he was arrested in 2017, according to the New York Times.
The former surgeon was then sentenced to 15 years in prison three years later for raping and sexually assaulting four children. The terms revealed on Wednesday supersede that sentence because there are no consecutive prison sentences in France.
Read more: 80-Year-Old Man Given Maximum Sentence of 60 Years for Child Exploitation of a 7-Year-Old
Scouarnec's latest trial came amid growing concerns about sexual abuse across France. This is because the number of victims being reported to police has surged and cases are crowding the country's courts.
One of the defendant's victims, Amelie Leveque, said that the possibility of the former surgeon being able to walk free and see people someday upsets them. They added that the accused's victims no longer have a normal life, BBC reported.
Sexual Abuse of 299 Individuals
A lawyer for some of the victims, Francesca Satta, argued that 20 years is little compared to the number of victims in the trial. She said that it was time for officials to change the law so that there are more appropriate sentences for such crimes.
During the latest trial, the defendant confessed to all the sexual abuse that 299 civil parties alleged and many other assaults that are now beyond the statute of limitations. Furthermore, Scouarnec acknowledged that he sexually abused his own granddaughter.
The sentence comes as one of the most prominent cases of sexual abuse in France is that of Gisele Pelicot. She was drugged and raped by her now ex-husband and dozens of other men. The latter have all been convicted and sentenced in December last year to three to 20 years in prison, as per CNN.
