Breast surgeon Ian Paterson found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent after 'unnecessary operations'

NHS has paid out nearly £18m, of which £9.5m was damages, following claims from nearly 800 patients of Paterson

Ian Paterson sobbed as the foreman of the jury returned the guilty verdicts (PA)

Breast surgeon Ian Paterson has been found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent after being accused of carrying out a series of unnecessary operations.

The 59-year-old denied all the charges, meaning the victims – nine women and a man – had their stories put under forensic examination at Nottingham Crown Court.

Among them was a mother who was said to have agreed to two “unnecessary” operations, leaving her unable to breastfeed, and a woman who had a “significant deformity in her visible cleavage area” after a pair of needless operations on her left breast.

One told the court the surgeon, also convicted of three counts of unlawful wounding, had “ruined my life”.

Paterson sobbed as the foreman of the jury returned the guilty verdicts, as did his daughter Emily, who was also in court.

The Scottish-born surgeon was suspended by the General Medical Council in 2012 amid claims he carried out cleavage-sparing mastectomies (CSMs), which led to the recall of more than 700 patients.

He was accused of causing grievous bodily harm to patients and lying to his victims, “exaggerating or quite simply inventing risk of cancer”, and claiming payments for more expensive procedures.

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 £18m, of which £9.5m was damages, following claims from nearly 800 of Paterson’ patients – a fact that the jury were not made aware of during proceedings.

Paterson’s seven-week trial heard harrowing testimony from 10 patients treated in the private sector between 1997 and 2011 at the Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.

The victims 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.

Others who suffered at the hands of the surgeon included Leanne Joseph, who is said to have agreed to two “unnecessary operations”, leaving her unable to breastfeed, after he told her it was a “small price to pay for her life”.

The mother – aged 25 when she had the operations in 2006 – was left paranoid and developed OCD after later giving birth, fearing for the immune system of her daughter, who is now eight years old.

Jurors heard that Mrs Joseph “was very concerned almost to the point of paranoia that [her daughter] was going to catch an illness” from husband of 10 years Mark as a result of not feeding naturally.

Another victim, Joanne Lowson, was left with a “significant deformity in her visible cleavage area” after a pair of unneeded operations on her left breast by Paterson in 2010.

Additional reporting from Press Association