France prepares for largest child abuse trial in its history

PARIS — Amélie Lévêque remembers the moment when she finally understood the unexplained bouts of depression and other disorders that had tormented her for more than two decades.

PARIS — Amélie Lévêque remembers the moment when she finally understood the unexplained bouts of depression and other disorders that had tormented her for more than two decades.

Now 42, she connected the dots in 2019 when she saw a report about a surgeon under investigation on suspicion of sexually assaulting patients over three decades and meticulously cataloging the abuse in digital diaries.

Lévêque was 9 years old when her appendix was removed by the surgeon.

Amélie Lévêque was operated on by the surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec when she was 9.Guillaume Souvant / AFP via Getty Images“Immediately I knew, voilà, that’s what happened to me,” Lévêque told AFP. “This explained so many strange things in my life, like my phobia of hospitals, my eating disorders … a life suspended since my operation.”

Lévêque is set to testify at France’s largest-ever child sex abuse trial, which opens Monday in Vannes, a picturesque town in coastal Brittany. Former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is charged with raping or sexually assaulting 299 victims over three decades, most of them girls and boys under 15 whose average age was 11.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/france-prepares-largest-child-abuse-trial-history-rcna193111

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