If Joël Le Scouarnec has received maximum sentence, he will however not have a safety retention measure. This Wednesday, after three months of an extraordinary trial, the former surgeon was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, accompanied by a two -thirds security sentence, and a socio -judicial follow -up of fifteen years.
A sentence claimed by the Advocate General and expected, Joël Le Scouarnec having recognized all of the factsincluding prescribed, as well as its responsibility in the suicide of two civil parties. The surprise is more the decision of the Criminal Court of Morbihan, who chose to rule out security retention, also claimed by the public prosecutor.
This measure, Created in 2008which can only be envisaged for people sentenced to 15 years in prison or more, consists in placing a criminal considered very dangerous, whose profile suggests that he can repeat, in a care center at the end of his sentence.
A “will to repair”
To justify his decision not to pronounce any possibility of security detention at the end of his sentence, the Criminal Court of Morbihan relied on several elements, starting with the age of Joël Le Scouarnec, 74 years old today, “after the execution of his sentence”, but also “the recognition of his actions”, “his awareness of the gravity of his acts and their consequences” Motivations, consulted by Le Parisien.
During the three months of trial, Joël Le Scouarnec showed a “willingness to repair the consequences of his actions”, according to the criminal court. The former surgeon “wanted to answer all the questions posed to him daily, facing the anger of the civil parties and their relatives who were expressed at the helm, without trying to shirk or avoid confrontation,” she explained in his motivations.
Security retention must keep “an exceptional character”
Since his incarceration in 2017, Joël Le Scouarnec “has embarked on a care process”, notes the Court, who considers that “nothing in his behavior during the last eight years nor during the hearing makes it possible to affirm that he would present a danger comparable to that which was his before his imprisonment”. According to her, the former surgeon, who is “accessible to reasoning”, is “able to comply with the strict judicial obligations imposed on him”.
“Given its age and the care put in place”, the criminal court believes that “nothing allows to assert” that Joël Le Scouarnec will present at the end of his sentence a “very high probability of recurrence”. If the Court does not deny that this “risk exists”, this element is not sufficient, on its own, “to justify the pronouncement of the principle of a security retention which must maintain an exceptional character”.
The maximum sentence pronounced
In addition, the former surgeon received the maximum sentence provided for in the penal code in matters of “aggravated rape” and “aggravated sexual assaults”, explains the criminal court, which recalls in his decision that “the violations of sexual matters with regard to a plurality of even minor victims could not be punished beyond 20 years of criminal”.
If a safety retention measure was expected by the almost 300 victims, it is because they founded the hope that Joël Le Scouarnec never comes out of prison. “It would be demagogic and illusory to make them believe that it is possible. As it stands, the law does not allow it, ”explains the criminal court of the Morhiban in his decision.
But the former surgeon is far from having finished with justice. A new preliminary investigation was opened by the Lorient prosecutor’s office for “sexual assault and rape” To seek other victims “Possibly unidentified or newly declared”.
