Joël Le Scouarnec is not ‘an accused who is silent, casual, extremely aggressive in his remarks, but someone who, on the contrary, submits completely to the trial’, says his lawyer, Maxime Tessier, as the former surgeon acknowledges having ‘committed heinous acts’ on the first day of his trial before the Morbihan criminal court for the rape and sexual assault of nearly 300 patients, most of whom were minors at the time of the offences. SOUNDBITE