A general practitioner practicing in Morteau, in Doubs, was indicted on Tuesday March 5 for a violation and sexual assault on twenty patients, announced the public prosecutor in Besançon.
The practitioner, aged 66, is being prosecuted for rape and twenty sexual assaults by a person abusing the authority which gives him his position, and he has been placed under judicial supervision with a ban on practicing, said prosecutor Etienne Manteaux. . .
The first complaints were filed in January 2024 and the allegations extend from April 2023 to February 2024. The gendarmes of Morteau and Pontarlier drew up a list of patients and interviewed more than 200 people.
Patients aged 18 to 30
Patients have notably reported that the doctor had positioned himself behind their back while touching their breasts, while they were consulting for a completely different reason, even claiming to have felt an erect penis behind their back, said Mr. Manteaux. .
“These gestures were accompanied by remarks about their plastic and absolutely inappropriate acts of seduction, according to these women in a vulnerable situation after having had to undress, while they followed for a completely different reason”, he continued. Most of the complainants are aged 18 to 30.
“The accused nor everything. He explains that he remained within the strict medical framework and that the patients did not understand the meaning of his therapeutic actions., according to the magistrate. Officially retired, the sixty-year-old still works a few days a week in a practice » short-lived « managed by the city of Morteau to compensate for a shortage of doctors.
“For the moment, there are only patients who have consulted Morteau who have made themselves known. No one from the doctor’s patient base in Etalans (where he practiced before his retirement) did not make himself known »said Mr. Manteaux. “If certain patients consider that they have been victims of such acts, they can report to the gendarmerie”he added.