Disgraced Trafford breast surgeon jailed
Ian Paterson carried out unecessary operations
A breast surgeon from Altrincham described in court as a monster, after he carried out a raft of needless operations, leaving his victims scarred and disfigured, has been jailed for 15 years.
Ian Paterson was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding against 10 patients last month.
Sentencing the surgeon from Altrincham, 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.
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.
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 looked like a car crash victim'' after undergoing an unnecessary mastectomy, while another had asignificant deformity in her visible cleavage area'' after a pair of needless operations on her left breast.
The surgeon maintained that all the operations were necessary but the jury agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason''.