Breast surgeon on trial accused of causing grievous bodily harm

The trial of a breast surgeon who is alleged to have caused grievous bodily harm to patients has begun.

Ian Paterson, 59, is accused of 20 counts of wounding with intent against ten women and one man.

He is accused of carrying out major breast cancer operations between 1997 and 2011, which were unnecessary.

He allegedly told patients that they needed the surgery because they had or were at risk of developing breast cancer.

Mr Paterson worked at NHS Heart of England Trust, and the case is concerned with work at two Spire private hospitals in the Birmingham area.

Opening the case, Julian Christopher QC told the jury the charges relate to a period when Paterson was a busy surgeon with an "excellent bedside manner".

Mr Christopher said: "Remarkably and tragically, these were operations which no reasonable surgeon at the time would have considered justified; nor are we dealing with simple mistakes or incompetence, because the jury may safely conclude that Ian Paterson knew that these operations were unjustified.

He suggested that Mr Patterson undertook operations "for his own, perhaps obscure, motives", to maintain an image as a successful surgeon, or to earn extra money.

Mr Christopher said that "a sufficiently consistent picture emerges for any realistic possibility that this was incompetence, or genuine difference of professional opinion... to be rejected".

"Ian Paterson was lying to patients, and to their GPs, and in some instances to a colleague as well, about the patient's condition, exaggerating or quite simply inventing risks of cancer, in order to justify carrying out serious operations which were quite unnecessary."

The case is due to last up to ten weeks.