Aurélia * thought for a long time before speaking publicly. She wanted to let her uncle’s first trial pass, Joël Le Scouarnec, which was held in December 2020, also let the pain and anger subside. After seven years of psychotherapy and the flood of testimonies under the hashtag #metooinceste, she is now determined to break this family silence, this leaden cover that has made her suffer so much.
>> “I am a big pervert and I am very happy”: dive into the notebooks of Joël Le Scouarnec, former surgeon suspected of pedophilia
Aurélia is one of the first people to suffer sexual violence from the pedophile surgeon, now accused of having killed at least 349 victims, in his family, but also in a dozen hospitals where he practiced. More than 30 years of impunity and family omerta on which his niece today lifts the veil.
An omerta “complex and insidious”, says the young woman. “I was not prevented from speaking, I was not told ‘above all, don’t say anything’. It was not taboo. It was often talked about, in fact the children’s word was freed. just that parents aren’t always ready to hear. “
“Above all, it was important not to disturb a fragile balance, upset an entire family image.”
These children who speak are her, her sister and a cousin, all three victims of sexual violence by the surgeon, in the 1980s and 1990s. He was at the time the pride of the family: doctor, brilliant, with a social status that no one dared hope for in this rather modest environment. “He’s the one who was the most successful, who lived the best, explains Aurélia. He was necessarily put on a pedestal, especially by his own parents. He was untouchable in the end. “ But in 1999, Aurélia’s little sister was the first to tell about the assaults, to her sister first, then the two little girls told their mother. From that moment on, everyone in the family knows that Joël Le Scouarnec is a pedophile. But the secret does not leave the family circle.
For several years, Aurélia was not aware of being so victimized. She only has one memory that bothers her, a somewhat hazy impression, which dates back to her 4 years: “I remember one night, where I felt a presence and flashes. I couldn’t wake up, as I was like ‘wake up!’ I didn’t succeed and I thought ‘maybe it’s lightning.’ The next day I asked my mom if there was a thunderstorm that night. say no “, she recalls.
These flashes are in fact the light from Joël Le Scouarnec’s camera. Unbearable clichés that Aurélia only discovers decades later, in the summer of 2019, in her lawyer’s office. At the time, Aurélia was pregnant: “I just remember my lawyer asking me to sit down, she gets me ready and shows me pictures to make sure it’s me. And it’s me. Then it’s the big blur. “ With these photos, Aurélia understands that she too was a victim of her uncle. The fight that she had led so far for her sister then also becomes hers.
Aurélia then discovers that her uncle has also attacked hundreds of other children in the hospitals where he practiced. She learned about it when the gendarmes called her in 2017, after the arrest of Joël Le Scouarnec and after the discovery of these famous notebooks, where he meticulously noted for more than 30 years all the attacks committed on children.
What was a case of incest then becomes the most serious case of pedocriminality in French judicial history with, to date, nearly 350 victims identified by the courts. “I did not expect at all such magnitude, says Aurélia. At the start, we don’t really believe in it. And at some point if we believe it, we just don’t want it to be ours, not to be part of this whole monstrosity. “
“We just don’t want this family to be ours.”
After the shock comes anger, against his uncle but also against his wife. “She knew”, assures Aurélia. “But she clearly protected this man. We also have the confession of my uncle who said during the trial ‘maybe she didn’t know everything, but she knew a lot of things’. Nothing should change, for her situation, for her image, for financial reasons surely too. They protect each other. She lied, when she could have protected a lot of children “, regrets the young woman. An omerta, which, for Aurélia, also allowed to cover up the affair “in other institutions. You don’t act alone for 30 years anyway, that’s obvious. Especially when you work in a hospital environment”.
The other culprit, according to Aurélia, is justice. In 2005, his uncle was sentenced to four months in prison for possession of child pornography images, but investigators did not go any further and miss dozens of assaults he had already committed. Yet, says Aurélia, “all the evidence was already there”.
The young woman is also fighting to have the rapes committed on her recognized when she was little. On December 3, the Assize Court of Saintes (Charente-Maritime) condemned Joël le Scouarnec for “sexual assault” on Aurélia. However, the photos and writings seized from the surgeon characterize a rape, according to the lawyer of the young woman, Me Delphine Driguez. With her client, she wants justice to reclassify the facts and finally recognize the reality of what Aurélia suffered.
Joël Le Scouarnec, him, appealed his conviction in December 2020 to 15 years in prison for rape and sexual assault on four victims, including Aurélia. He has also been indicted since October 2020 for rape and sexual assault on 312 other children, all former small patients of the hospitals in which he worked for more than 30 years.
* The first name has been changed
Joël Le Scouarnec’s niece confides in franceinfo
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