THE lawyer for a French surgeon dubbed one of country’s worst sex offenders in history has died in an apparent suicide, a prosecutor has said.

Maxime Tessier, 34, had defended Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, who admitted at his trial to sexually assaulting or raping hundreds of patients between 1989 and 2014.

Many of Le Scouarnec’s 298 victims were children.

He was sentenced by a French court to to 20 years in prison back in May.

Frederic Teillet, chief prosecutor in the western French city of Rennes, said that an investigation had been started into the lawyer’s death.

“Everything points to suicide,” Teillet said.

Catherine Glon, his associate, said he “had a very high regard for justice and was therefore very demanding towards himself.”

Tessier had been one of two lawyers defending Le Scouarnec, who is considered one of the most egregious sex offenders in French criminal history.