Faulty breast implant boss jailed

One of the 47,000 British women who received faulty PIP breast implants recalls the terrifying experience of finding her implant had ruptured.

Emma Lonsdale, 31, says she was '"absolutely petrified" when she found a lump in one of her breasts.

Read: PIP breast implant firm boss jailed for four years

In Implant patient said she was disgusted over the four year sentence handed down to Jean-Claude Mas, the boss of a French company which sold 300,000 faulty PIP breast implants.

Leesa Goodway from Wickwar, South Gloucestershire, said: "I think it is disgusting when you think about the number of people that were affected by this.

"You've got the health issues, the mental issues, the financial burden, not just on the people who were forced to pay to have a replacement, like myself, [but also] the financial burden on the companies.

"I just don't think the sentence of four years equates to the distress, and all the heartache that was caused by someone basically profiteering and trying to make money."

Read: PIP breast implant firm boss jailed for four years

Four other executives responsible for selling PIP breast implants, were sentenced alongside the company's founder and long-time chief executive Jean-Claude Mas.

The four received sentences between one and a half and three years in prison, some of it suspended, and ordered to pay fine.

"It's a strong signal. This decision is what victims were waiting for," said one of their lawyers, Philippe Courtois.

Read: PIP trial and the 'uncomfortable truth' for the UK government

Women who were sold faulty PIP breast implants took to Twitter to express their feelings after a court in Marseille sentenced Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of the French company accused of selling the implants, to four years in prison.

A court in Marseille sentenced Jean-Claude Mas, the head of a French company accused of selling 300,000 faulty breast implants, to four years in prison.

He was accused of aggravated fraud for using industrial-grade silicone in the implants.

Mr Mas was also fined 75,000 euros (£63,000) by the court.

It is thought around 300,000 women were sold faulty breast implants, before the company went into liquidation in 2011.

47,000 British women had implants made by the company.

Read: Background to the PIP breast implant scandal

A court in Marseille sentenced Jean-Claude Mas, the head of a French company accused of selling 300,000 faulty PIP breast implants, to four years in prison.

• Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) was founded by Jean-Claude Mas in 1991
• Before the company went into liquidation in 2011, it is thought around 300,000 women were sold faulty breast implants.
• Concerns were first raised in France over PIP's high rupture rate in 2009

• In 2010, France suspended the marketing, distribution, export and use of PIP implants
• The French government said it recommended all women with the implants to have them removed in late 2011

• A review ordered by the Health Secretary found that PIP implants were more likely to rupture or leak
• Mas offered an apology on April 24, 2013, for the implants, saying: "I apologise to the plantiffs for the gel used by PIP since 1992."

Information from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency

A court in Marseille is expected to deliver its verdict today in the case against Jean-Claude Mas - the head of a French company accused of selling 300,000 faulty PIP breast implants.

Mas, along with other former bosses at Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), is accused of aggravated fraud for using industrial-grade silicone in the implants.

An estimated 300,000 women have been given the implants worldwide, including around 47,000 in the UK. French authorities took all the implants off the market in March 2010 after concerns were raised.

Health authorities in France and elsewhere have stressed that PIP's products carry no proven link to cancer, but surgeons report that they have abnormally high rupture rates.