The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
‘Monster’ surgeon jailed for needless operations
COURT: Victims were left scarred and disfigured after unnecessary ops were carried out
“Monster” surgeon Ian Paterson has been jailed for 15 years after he carried out a raft of needless breast operations, leaving his victims scarred and disfigured.
Paterson, 59, was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding against 10 patients last month.
Sentencing the surgeon at Nottingham Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Baker said Paterson was driven by his “own self-aggrandisement and the material rewards which it brought from your private practice”.
He added: “You deliberately played upon their worst fears, either by inventing or deliberately exaggerating the risk that they would develop cancer, and thereby gained their trust and confidence to consent to the surgical procedures which you carried out upon them.”
Paterson, from Altrincham, Greater Manchester, was handed 15 years for each count of wounding with intent, and four years for each count of unlawful wounding, to run concurrently.
The trial heard harrowing evidence from the nine women and one man, who were treated in the private sector between 1997 and 2011 at Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.
Before hearing his sentence, the victims told the court how Paterson’s crimes had left them in constant pain and struggling to trust medical professionals.
To applause from the public gallery, John Ingram described Paterson as a “criminal” who has “never expressed remorse for his actions”.
He said: “He used the respectability and cloak of professionalism that came with being a consultant breast cancer surgeon to commit grotesque, violent acts against me and the other victims.”
Carole Johnson, who went under Paterson’s knife six times in seven years with all but the first procedure unnecessary, said Paterson was a “monster”.
She said her “world has been turned upside down”, adding: “I do not think I can find it within my heart to ever forgive him.”
Judge Baker said because of his actions, most of his victims are suffering from “prolonged psychological conditions” including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
In 2012, more than 700 patients of Paterson’s were recalled after concerns about unnecessary or incomplete operations.
He was suspended by the General Medical Council that same year amid claims that he carried out so-called cleavage-sparing mastectomies (CSMs).
A freedom of information request by the Press Association revealed that 68 women who underwent a CSM – in which part of the breast was left for cosmetic reasons – by Paterson on the NHS had gone on to develop a recurrence of breast cancer.
Figures also revealed that the NHS has paid out nearly £18 million, of which £9.5m was damages, following claims from nearly 800 of his patients.