Burns specialist ‘doused fellow surgeon’s home with petrol before stabbing him in stomach’
Medic in dock for attempted murder was facing work disciplinary hearing
A SPECIALIST burns surgeon broke into a colleague’s home in the middle of the night, doused it in petrol and stabbed him after the victim gave evidence against him in a disciplinary hearing, a court heard yesterday.
Peter Brooks, 56, ‘ hated’ trauma surgeon Graeme Perks, 66, and tried to murder him because he ‘wanted him out of the way’, it is alleged.
Dressed in a camouflage jacket, a balaclava and wearing a head torch, Brooks cycled through snow to Mr Perks’ £800,000 home in a nearby village ‘armed with the intention to kill’. He was carrying a kitchen knife, crowbar, a box of matches and two ten-litre cans of petrol. He smashed through glass doors of a conservatory, before dousing the ground floor and staircase with the fuel.
The jury heard Mr Perks was awoken by a noise downstairs and confronted an intruder, but was stabbed in the abdomen.
Tracy Ayling QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Mr Perks’ wife Beverley and son Henry, 29, were sleeping upstairs at the property in upmarket Halam, Nottinghamshire. They were alerted by Mr Perks’ screams and called 999.
Mr Perks said he ran downstairs naked after being woken by a ‘loud noise’, fearing somebody was trying to break in.
‘I went into the drawing room’, he said. ‘There appeared to be a hole in the conservatory door and I vaguely think that my feet felt a bit damp.
‘I saw a figure in dark clothing in the garden with their back to me, of a similar build to my son, Henry. I was confused... I shouted out: “What the hell’s going on, Henry?”.
‘The figure turned around and the next thing I remember was a blow to my body and feeling something warm and sticky, and something poking out from my abdomen.’
Mr Perks said he realised he had
been stabbed and turned to go back into the house. The next thing he could recall was a comment from the paramedics as they put him on a stretcher.
Mr Perks was rushed to hospital where he underwent emergency surgery for a knife wound that sliced his liver, pancreas and small intestine.
He lost ten pints of blood, was placed in a medically induced coma and spent a week in critical care, undergoing a further two operations, before being disy
charged more than a month later. Miss Ayling said Mr Perks was saved only due to ‘quick action and amazing surgical skill’. The court heard that 95 per cent of patients with the same injuries would not have survived.
Brooks allegedly fled the scene on his bicycle. He was found the next morning, asleep on a bench in a communal garden in Southwell, the town where he lived.
Brooks had a badly cut hand and was taken to hospital, where he was arrested. He refused to make any comment to police when questioned. By that point, jurors heard, his wife had called police to report him missing.
Nottingham Crown Court heard that, at the time of the attempted
murder – in the early hours of January 14 last year – Brooks was the subject of disciplinary proceedings at work.
A hearing had commenced online on January 11 and reconvened on January 13, hours before the stabbing, despite attempts by the defendant to get it postponed.
Miss Ayling said statements from Mr Perks had been served and formed part of the evidence.
‘There is no question but that by January 14, the defendant had had enough of those proceedings’, the barrister added.
‘He decided that instead of following the law he was going to take the law into his own hands... It is clear that the defendant hated Graeme Perks and you can
conclude on the evidence that he wanted him out of the way.’
The court heard that Brooks’ DNA was found on the handle of the kitchen knife recovered from Mr Perks’ living room, and glass fragments from the smashed conservatory doors were found on Brooks’ jacket.
The defendant’s blood was also discovered inside a bag containing a box of matches, indicating ‘just how close’ Brooks was to setting the fire, the prosecutor said.
Miss Ayling said the fact Brooks, a consultant surgeon who special
‘I saw a figure in dark clothing’
‘He wanted him out of the way’
ised in burns, had poured petrol throughout the ground floor and on to the first five steps of the staircase, was evidence he intended to kill those inside by blocking a means of escape once the fire took hold.
‘It was in the middle of night,’ Miss Ayling said. ‘The only exit point for those sleeping upstairs would have been the stairs. A fire raging downstairs and on the stairs would also have spread. The purpose must have been to kill those in the property and to... stop them escaping down the staircase.’
Mr Perks is a former chairman and president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons’ professional standards committee. He qualified as a surgeon in 1979.
Brooks is representing himself at the trial but declined to attend yesterday’s hearing.
He denies attempted murder, attempted arson with intent to endanger life and possession of a knife.
The trial continues.