Jailed for 15 years: The ‘charming’ surgeon who butchered his patients
Questions over how he was allowed to get away with it
VICTIMS of “arrogant” breast surgeon Ian Paterson said his 15-year prison sentence will never compensate them for the trauma and pain he put them through.
The former surgeon, who carried out unnecessary operations at Little Aston and Parkway private hospitals in the West Midlands, was jailed on Wednesday for 17 counts of wounding with intent and three of unlawful wounding.
He had also practised for years at NHS hospitals in Solihull and Sutton Coldfield, where bosses had been warned about his conduct.
Some of Paterson’s victims told Nottingham Crown Court how his crimes had left them with “painful mutilating scars”.
Patricia Welch had a lump removed from her breast by Paterson in 2001 when she was 48, with tests showing she was at risk of cancer. She said: “Before... I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw someone that had avoided cancer by having a mastectomy. Now, and probably for the rest of my life, I see a victim of Ian Paterson who took away part of me as a woman.”
A 2013 report revealed there had been years of complaints about the surgeon by colleagues – but NHS bosses preferred “good news to true news”. The General Medical Council (GMC) said questions must now be asked about how Paterson, 59, was able to carry out the unnecessary operations.
GMC chief executive Charlie Massey said Paterson’s crimes were “deeply shocking acts that betrayed patients’ trust”.
He added: “It is absolutely right that questions are asked about how this happened and more crucially how the health system can prevent it from happening again. As soon as we were made aware of these issues we took action to curb his practice and then suspend him, but his practice went unchecked for so long because some of those in the health system, managers but also his colleagues, had their concerns but failed to report them to us.”
More than 500 patients are seeking compensation from private healthcare provider Spire. The NHS has already paid out nearly £18 million.
BREAST surgeon Ian Paterson has been jailed for 15 years after he carried out a raft of needless breast operations in the Midlands, leaving his victims scarred and disfigured.
Paterson 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 on Wednesday, Judge Jeremy Baker told him he was driven by his “own self-aggrandisement and the material rewards which it brought from your private practice”.
The judge said: “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 was handed 15 years for each count of wounding with intent, and four years for each count of unlawful wounding, all to run concurrently.
After sentencing, Pamela Jain, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Paterson, 59, repeatedly abused his victims’ trust over more than a decade.
She said: “He knew the procedures were not needed but carried on regardless, inflicting unlawful wounds on his patients.
“The impact of Paterson’s actions on his victims has been devastating, from the unnecessary distress of undergoing procedures they did not need, to the scars that will always serve as a physical reminder of what their doctor, Ian Paterson, did to them.”
Paterson, who took a large black suitcase into the courtroom, sat in the dock as his sentence was handed down but showed little emotion, often keeping his eyes down.
Judge Baker said all of his victims have been left feeling “violated and vulnerable”, with some suffering “prolonged psychological conditions” including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression.
He added: “You can be both a charming and charismatic individual ... these are the same characteristics which you deliberately misused in this case, both to manipulate your patients into believing what you were advising them, and in your evidence at trial, when you sought to persuade the jury about the righteousness of your position.”
Judge Baker also drew attention to the “less attractive side” of Paterson’s character, namely arrogance, which he said may have misled the surgeon into believing he was “untouchable”, and that no-one would dare question his authority.
Paterson’s trial heard harrowing evidence from 10 of his patients who were treated in the private sector between 1997 and 2011 at Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.
The victims – nine women and one man – told the court they believed they were seriously ill after seeing Paterson, with one patient saying she was described as a “cancer ticking bomb” and another convinced she had cancer – rather than merely being at risk of developing it.
One of the victims of the Scottish- born surgeon looked like a “car crash victim” after undergoing an unnecessary mastectomy, while another had a “significant deformity in her visible cleavage area” after two needless operations on her left breast.
The surgeon maintained all the operations were necessary but the jury agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out “extensive, lifechanging operations for no medically justifiable reason”.
During the trial, jurors were not told that hundreds of Paterson’s patients were recalled in 2012 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) which led to the recall of more than 700 patients.
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 £9.5 million was damages, following claims from nearly 800 patients of Paterson.
Judge Baker told Paterson, who he said has previously been of “good character”, that his convictions for the offences mark the end of his professional career.
He told the court that in the period before his trial Paterson was suffering from symptoms associated with adjustment disorder, but that he felt he “deliberately exaggerated” these to “seek to avoid being convicted of these offences”.
He knew the procedures were not needed but carried on regardless, inflicting unlawful wounds on his patients Pamela Jain CPS