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A French anaesthetist accused of intentionally poisoning 30 child and adult patients between the ages of four and 89, 12 of whom died, has gone on trial in the city where he worked.
Frédéric Péchier, 53, worked at two clinics in the eastern city of Besançon when patients went into cardiac arrest in suspicious circumstances between 2008 and 2017. Twelve could not be resuscitated.
Péchier, who had previously been considered by some colleagues as a “star anaesthetist”, is accused of triggering heart attacks in patients so he could show off his resuscitation skills and discredit co-workers.
Péchier’s youngest alleged victim, a four-year-old identified as Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil operation in 2016. The doctor’s oldest alleged victim was 89.
The trial, which began on Monday, follows an eight-year investigation that stunned the medical community. Péchier has denied the charges.
Péchier was greeted on his arrival at the court by several of his relatives, including one who shouted: “Come on, Frédo.”
Earlier, Péchier had told the broadcaster RTL he had “strong arguments” in his defence. “It’s necessary to lay all the cards on the table,” he said.
Asked about the suffering of the families who will attend the trial, set to last until December, Péchier replied: “I understand it completely, but on the other hand, I am not responsible for their distress.”
Péchier faces life imprisonment if convicted. He is not currently in custody but under judicial supervision, an alternative to pre-trial detention.
He has not practised medicine since 2017, even though in 2023 he was authorised to work provided he did not come into contact with patients.
“I’ve been waiting for this for 17 years,” said Amandine Iehlen, whose 53-year-old father died of cardiac arrest during kidney surgery in 2008. An autopsy revealed an overdose of lidocaine, a local anaesthetic.
The prosecutor Étienne Manteaux has said the case is “unprecedented in French legal history”.
An investigation was opened in 2017 after suspicious cardiac arrests during operations on patients considered low risk.
Péchier is suspected of tampering with his colleagues’ paracetamol bags or anaesthesia pouches to create operating room emergencies where he could intervene to show off his resuscitating talents.
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“What he is accused of is poisoning healthy patients in order to harm colleagues with whom he was in conflict,” Manteaux said.
“Frédéric Péchier was the first responder when cardiac arrest occurred,” he added. “He always had a solution.”
Pechier has blamed “medical errors” by his colleagues for most of the poisonings.
Over the course of the inquiry, investigators examined more than 70 reports of “serious adverse events”, medical jargon for unexpected complications or deaths among patients.
The cases of 30 patients who suffered cardiac arrest during surgery at the Saint-Vincent clinic and the Franche-Comté polyclinic made it to trial.
Péchier’s defence team will argue for acquittal. “It’s very easy to accuse people, it’s harder to prove things,” one of his lawyers, Randall Schwerdorffer, told reporters.
More than 150 civil parties will be represented at the trial.
