Joël Le Scouarnec (born 3 December 1950^[1][2]) is a retired French surgeon, sex offender and pedophile. His case in 2025 has been recognised as the largest child sexual abuse trial in France involving at least 299 victims.^[3][4][5] On his first day of trial at a court in Vannes, he confessed that he had "committed despicable acts" and caused "wounds [which] are indelible, beyond repair."^[6][7] His acts covered 1989 to 2014 while working at various hospitals, and most of his victims were his patients, and most under 15 years of age. He had maintained notebooks in which he meticulously recorded several events. It was from this document that some of his victims learned they were raped several decades ago while incapacitated in hospitals.^[8]

Le Scouarnec was born in Paris. He studied medicine at the University of Nantes, graduating in 1981. He continued a specialisation course in visceral and digestive surgery, completing it in 1983.^[1] (A source mentioning 1985 as the graduation year is unlikely.^[9]) That year, he moved to Indre-et-Loire to work at the La Fontaine de Loches clinic.^[1] In 1994, he was worked at Sacré-Coeur polyclinic, a private hospital at Vannes. For the next ten years, he was employed at different hospitals in Brittany.^[10] In 2004, he moved to Lorient to join the public hospital following appointment through government service. The next year, he received an appointment at a public hospital in Quimperlé.^[11][12] In 2008, he joined the Jonzac hospital in Charente-Maritime, where he worked until his imprisonment in 2017.^[1]

Le Scouarnec met Marie-France, a health worker, while studying in Nantes. They married in 1983.^[10] They had three children.^[9]