A former French surgeon on trial on charges of sexually abusing almost 300 patients, mostly children, said on Monday he was “done with lying” and “ready to admit” to some rapes.

“Today I feel ready to admit to some acts of rape that I have wanted to hide, deny. I’m ready to admit to them. I’m done with lying,” the accused, Joel Le Scouarnec, told a French court after an investigator’s testimony about meticulous records the doctor kept of the abuse.

During the investigation, Le Scouarnec had admitted to the rape of boys under the guise of rectal examinations, the investigator told the court.

He had confessed to sexually assaulting girls, but dismissed his written accounts of rape against young female patients as “exaggeration” or “fantasy”, he said.

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