Op left my wife looking like a car crash victim
SURGEON TRIAL HUSBAND’S ANGER Scots doctor performed an unnecessary mastectomy on a woman who had only benign growths in her breast, jury are told
A MUM looked like she had been in a car crash after having an unnecessary mastectomy, a court heard yesterday.
Marian Moran was operated on by Glaswegian surgeon Ian Paterson in February 2004 after finding a series of lumps in her left breast over the previous six years.
Her husband Eamon said he didn’t let his wife’s parents and their daughter see her afterwards in case it was “too much to witness”.
Marian claimed she would have gone along with any treatment suggested by the “charming” doctor after he said scans had revealed pre-cancerous cells.
They turned out to be benign “little warts”, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
Paterson, who was formerly employed by Heart of England NHS Trust and also practised at Spire Healthcare, is standing trial after denying wounding with intent nine women and one man relating to procedures he carried out between 1997 and 2011.
Jurors have previously heard claims that he carried out unnecessary operations for “obscure motives” that may have included a desire to “earn extra money”.
In a statement read out to the court, publican Eamon, who has been married to Marian for 35 years, said the time of his wife’s mastectomy was “very vivid” as the family had just lost a friend to breast cancer.
He said: “She looked like she had been involved in a car crash.
“I didn’t let her parents see her. It would have been too much for them to witness.
“(It was the) same for my daughter.
“I felt guilty because I had agreed to her having the operation.”
Marian was 49 when she first went to see her GP in 1998 about a lump in her breast, with a mammogram proving inconclusive.
She told the jury of seven men and five women that she was told the growths were pre-cancerous and that Paterson suggested they should be removed, fearing they could develop into cancer.
She said: “Whatever Mr Paterson said, I would have gone along with. In my opinion he was at the top of his profession.
“He said it was pre-cancerous. I’m in no way a medical person, and it was my belief – based on what Mr
I didn’t let her parents see her. It would have been too much for them to witness EAMON MORAN
Paterson led me to believe – that if these lumps kept recurring that one of them would be cancerous.”
When asked by prosecutor Julian Christopher QC: “If you had thought at the time that these operations were not necessary, would you have chosen to have them?” Marian replied: “Certainly not.” Under cross-examination by Nicholas Johnson QC, defending, Marian accepted she had difficulty remembering the various dates and procedures.
She said: “I don’t want to remember it. Why would I want to go back? My belief is to go forwards.”
She accepted Mr Johnson’s suggestion that she had “buried” that period in her life.
Paterson, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, denies 20 counts of wounding with intent.
The trial continues.