Could Joël Le Scouarnec have been removed from office ten years before his arrest? According to information revealed Thursday by franceinfo, the case of the surgeon, accused of having sexually assaulted nearly 300 children, had been debated since 2006 within the Ministry of Health.
It is a series of emails, sometimes alarming in tone, exchanged in the winter of 2006, within high hospital authorities. At the heart of the concerns: a surgeon, Joël Le Scouarnec, sentenced a year earlier for possession of child pornography. A conviction passed at the time under the radars of his employers.
>> “I am a big pervert and I am very happy about it”: diving into the notebooks of Joël Le Scouarnec, former surgeon suspected of pedophilia
At that time, no one suspected that the doctor would be sentenced 14 years later to 15 years in prison for four sexual assaults and rapes of minors. Then indicted for similar facts against this time 312 victims (including 19 considered prescribed by the investigating chamber last December), mostly small patients he had operated on during his 30-year career in hospitals in the west of France.
But in November 2005, Joël Le Scouarnec attracted the attention of the French authorities. At the time, he was spotted thanks to an FBI investigation, and sentenced for possession of child pornography images. He bought, with his credit card, pornographic videos featuring children. The justice then condemns him to four months in prison, suspended, without obligation of care or prohibition to exercise. But the judicial court of Vannes does not send this condemnation to anyone: neither to the hospitals where Joël Le Scouarnec then exercises, nor to the Order of Physicians. The doctor is however in contact with children on a daily basis: he is a visceral and digestive surgeon and therefore operates on dozens of minors, in particular for appendicitis. For more than six months, no one was aware of this conviction. Until spring 2006.
The first alerts
At the beginning of June 2006, a colleague of Joël Le Scouarnec learned somewhat by chance of the existence of this court decision. He also noticed alarming behavior from the surgeon. The psychiatrist then alerted the management of the Quimperlé hospital. In a letter dated June 14, 2006, he indicates “have doubts about the ability of Joël Le Scouarnec to keep all his serenity in contact with young children”.
The information is then transmitted to the departmental council of the Finistère College of Physicians. Doctor Le Scouarnec was even summoned at the end of November. A plenary meeting is also held a few weeks later. But the county council decides, unanimously, not to initiate any disciplinary proceedings. The file was forwarded to the Regional Order, but no follow-up was given.
At the same time, the conviction of Joël Le Scouarnec will gradually go up to the heads of the hospital hierarchy. At the departmental level, then at the regional level and finally at the level of the Ministry of Health, more specifically with the hospitalization and care directorate (DHOS): a general directorate attached directly to the Ministry of Health and which manages in particular the tenure and possible disciplinary sanctions against hospital doctors.
The information is then taken seriously. Several senior officials write in black and white that this condemnation is “worrying” and that she is not “not compatible with the necessary morality conditions” to be a hospital practitioner.
But hospital authorities will find themselves faced with a major problem. At the time, Joël Le Scouarnec had just been established as a hospital practitioner. He passed the competition, and above all, his file was validated. His conviction has already been pronounced, but the justice system has not updated his criminal record. His candidacy was therefore validated without incident on August 1, 2006.
The radiation hypothesis
When his conviction goes back to the Ministry of Health a few months later, the DHOS officials then ask themselves the question of striking him off, but a mysterious white note will change everything. This letter that franceinfo was able to consult is neither dated nor signed, but it appears in copy of several exchanges of emails between officials of the Ministry of Health.
It is in fact a summary of the ministry’s position on the situation of Dr. Le Scouarnec. Its author acknowledges that “knowledge by the administration” of the judgment of the surgeon “Certainly would have justified her not making her appointment” but afterwards it seems “difficult to consider canceling the appointment of this practitioner”. It would be, says the author, “a cumbersome option to implement and the result of which is not certain”. The note also recalls “the good appreciations given to [son] work”.
The note therefore excludes any possibility of a disciplinary sanction or an exclusion of Dr Le Scouarnec. It ends with these words: “The Minister * having to react, the option of a complaint to the Order of Physicians seems the most appropriate”.
An untraceable complaint
Officials from the Ministry of Health then asked the regional director of hospitalization in Brittany to file this complaint on their behalf with the Order of Physicians. Except that this complaint never existed.
Questioned by the investigators, none of the officials at the time is able to explain it. Contacted by franceinfo, the College of Physicians confirms that it has never received this complaint. Result: once again, no sanction is taken against the surgeon.
However, out of any procedure, some warn about the case of the surgeon. A hospital director in Morbihan, for example, tells investigators that he received a surprising call when he was preparing to recruit Joël Le Scouarnec in June 2007. “I was informed by the director of the Brittany Regional Hospital Agency. I was surprised that he contacted me by telephone and not by post […] he informed me that it was not in the interest of my establishment to integrate [Joël Le Scouarnec]. He justified this position by the fact that they were aware that this gentleman was the subject of a criminal conviction for viewing child pornography. says this director. He then says that he did not follow up on the recruitment of Joël Le Scouarnec, but did not inform anyone of this conviction.
The surgeon will therefore continue his career in Quimperlé then in Jonzac in Charente-Maritime. There, he reports his conviction by the courts as soon as he arrives, but the Order of Physicians still authorizes him to register and the hospital agrees to hire him.
The Ministry of Health will even authorize him in 2015 to extend his professional activity beyond the legal retirement age. The director attached to the Ministry of Health who signs this authorization is however the one who at the time managed the Le Scouarnec file within the DHOS. He was therefore fully aware of the surgeon’s situation and criminal conviction.
Joël Le Scouarnec will therefore continue his career for another 12 years after his conviction. Twelve years during which justice suspects him of having made 45 new victims.
Contacted by franceinfo, the Minister of Health at the time Xavier Bertrand affirms, through his entourage, never to have heard of the existence of this white note or of any report concerning Doctor Le Scouarnec. franceinfo also contacted the team of the current Ministry of Health, which did not respond to our requests.