Verdict expected on Wednesday in landmark French mass child sex abuse case

The public prosecutor in the case has previously called for 74-year old former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec who is accused of raping or abusing 299 victims, to be handed a 20-year prison sentence.

The verdict in France's largest child sexual abuse trial is set to be delivered on Wednesday, bringing an end to a landmark three-month trial. Joël Le Scouarnec, a 74-year old former surgeon, is accused of raping or abusing 299 victims, predominantly children, over a 25-year period between 1989-2014. Over the course of the trial, Le Scouarnec confessed to the crimes which were mostly carried out while the victims were under anaesthetic or undergoing operations. Le Scouarnec was first convicted in 2005 for possession of child pornography and was handed a four-month suspended prison sentence and a €90 fine.Later, in 2020, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars after being found guilty of molesting four children, including his two nieces, one of his patients and a neighbour.The public prosecutor has called for Le Scouarnec to be given a 20-year sentence and said two-thirds of that sentence must be served behind bars before potential parole. In his final address to the court, Le Scouarnec's defence framed his admission of guilt as "an act of reparation," while adding he hadn't asked for "any leniency," but "simply [for] the right (...) to regain that part of my humanity that has been so lacking."Institutional failures which protected Le Scouarnec According to several victims and human rights NGOs, France's health and judicial authorities are partly to blame for the scale of the abuse Le Scouarnec was able to carry out. In mid-May, a group of 50 victims sent a letter to France's Ministries of Health and Justice, as well as to the country's High Commissioner for Children, in which they called on authorities to set up an inter-ministerial commission after the trial.Meanwhile, the child protection charity "La Voix De l'Enfant" has condemned the lack of investigations into Le Scouarnec from health authorities or other related bodies, despite the fact he was handed a four-month suspended prison sentence in 2005 for possessing images of child pornography.The culmination of a seven-year investigationThe trial is the culmination of a seven-year investigation, which began when a six-year-old neighbour told her parents that Le Scouarnec had touched her over the fence which separated their properties.Police searched Le Scouarnec's home and discovering his diaries in which he is alleged to have meticulously catalogued the instances of rape and abuse, alongside the victims' names. In one entry, he allegedly wrote: "I am a paedophile and I always will be."Le Scouarnec's trial comes as campaigners across France have been attempting to lift the taboo which has long surrounded sexual abuse, months after the Gisèle Pelicot case drew to a close.Pelicot was drugged and raped by her ex-husband and dozens of other men over a nine-year period. The men involved were handed sentences ranging from three to 20 years.