RENNES, France – A French surgeon accused of raping and assaulting hundreds of his patients is due to go on trial later in February just two months after Dominique Pelicot was jailed for drugging his then wife so that dozens of strangers could rape her.
If convicted, former surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec will join Pelicot in being regarded as one of France’s worst sex offenders.
The trial of the 74-year-old retired surgeon is set to begin in the northwestern city of Vannes on Feb. 24 and will last until June.
The trial of 72-year-old Pelicot and 50 co-defendants also lasted for four months — from Sept. 2 to Dec. 20, 2024 — after which he was jailed for 20 years.
Le Scouarnec was convicted in 2020 of abusing four children and he is already in prison.
At the heart of both cases is abuse of unconscious victims.
Pelicot drugged his then wife Gisele Pelicot by crushing sleeping pills into her food and drink.
In the case of the surgeon, the victims were “subjected to sedation by anaesthesia,” said Cecile de Oliveira, a lawyer representing some of the victims.
Francesca Satta, another lawyer representing some of the victims, said the two cases were difficult to compare, calling them “totally unique.”
“On the one hand, you have an adult who was drugged and effectively trapped by her husband,” she said.
“Here we are in a hospital environment, with children who were abused” while they were under general anaesthesia or after they woke up, she added.
