investigators and his own notebooks describe as a pattern of violence spanning over three decades. “I committed odious acts,” Joël Le Scouarnec told the court in Vannes. “They were only children.” The 74-year-old faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, on top of 15 years he has been serving after being found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault of children.  Le Scouarnec told the court he acknowledges committing rapes and sexual assaults. But he said he regards himself as not guilty of those crimes in some of the cases.

“I am aware that these injuries are irreparable,” he said. “I cannot go back in time but I owe it to all of these people and their loved ones to take responsibility for my actions.” Some survivors have no memory of the assaults, being unconscious at the time. One man now in his 30s testified he was assaulted during a consultation in 1995, when he was a young boy. “I remember certain things in the recovery room. I was in total panic. I called my dad,” he told the court.