RENNES, France (AFP) — A former surgeon on trial in France for sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most under 15, has admitted guilt for all 299 victims, one of his lawyers said on Thursday.

Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has been on trial in the western city of Vannes since early March, in one of the country’s largest child sex abuse cases.

He is charged with assaulting or raping the patients, many while under anesthesia or waking up after operations, at a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014.

“I have a duty to tell the truth,” Le Scoaurnec said during Thursday’s trial behind closed doors, his lawyer Maxime Tessier told Agence France-Presse.

Tessier said he had asked Le Scouarnec if he admitted that the numerous people mentioned in notebooks seized by investigators were “all potential victims of his acts and he said: ‘Yes.’”

“I asked him if he agreed that the 299 charges were (criminal) offenses and he said: ‘Yes,’” Tessier added.

Until now, Le Scouarnec had only admitted to his guilt on a case-by-case basis as the proceedings progressed, with attention focused on the notebooks in which he meticulously recorded the abuse he inflicted on his victims.

During the investigation he had denied many of the accusations, insisting he was merely performing his medical duties.

“I asked the court to record in the minutes of the proceedings that Mr. Le Scouarnec had admitted his guilt for the 299 charges,” Tessier said.

The former surgeon is already in jail, having been found guilty in 2020 of abusing four children, including two of his nieces.

The surgeon was never investigated during his career despite a 2005 sentence for owning sexually abusive images of children.

He continued to work until his retirement in 2017, after which a six-year-old accused him of rape and police discovered diary accounts of abuse stored on his computers.