Original subtitles

As we sat down, Paterson immediately said,

"You have got cancer."

He was a charming doctor that told them

he was going to save their lives.

They had no reason to question the treatment

he was providing to them.

To me, he had this kind of twisted thing about his scalpel

and cutting into people.

Is he saying that the operation was actually done for no reason?

Why did I let them do that to me?

To allow them to cut you open?

The more he does, the more money he makes.

He's one of the worst criminals that we've seen in the NHS

and the private sector.

NARRATOR: Solihull, in the south-east of Birmingham.

While getting ready for a night out with friends,

45-year-old Debbie makes a discovery that will change her life.

I had to get ready really quickly. I didn't have a lot of time

to get to my friend's house.

Got in the bath and that's when I found the lump.

It was quite small. It was like a hard pea shape.

I was worried that I'd got something, you know.

I've got three kids.

They were teenagers at the time,

so the thought of me having any kind of cancer

was just unbearable, really.

Debbie's private health insurer refers her to one

of their top consultants, Mr Ian Paterson.

Walking through into reception, it was,

"You're really lucky to have Paterson, you know,

"he's the best consultant."

He had an air of authority about him.

Ian Paterson was a very well-known surgeon.

He was the man to go to if you had breast cancer

and needed to be seen.

He worked predominantly for the NHS,

but he also worked for several different private hospitals.

He was trained as a vascular surgeon,

but he was considered very charming and very popular with his patients,

and they felt at ease with him.

Paterson performs a fine-needle aspiration to investigate the lump

on Debbie's breast.

It was a large needle. Didn't give me any anaesthetic

around the breast.

He kind of felt where the lump was.

And he said to me, "This is really going to hurt."

And he literally jabs it in a number of times,

and it was like having a red-hot poker in your breast.

It was so painful.

And then he said, "We'll get the results back Monday."

Monday came.

And as we sat down, Paterson immediately said,

"You have got cancer."

There's a degree of shock when they tell you these things.

I was upset, obviously.

I actually said to him, you know, "Am I going to live?

"Is it treatable?"

And he went, "Look, it's treatable.

"We've got to do a mastectomy.

"But you will have immediate reconstruction.

"You'll go in with two boobs and come out with two boobs

"and a nice flat stomach."

When he said that, it's like, "That isn't my priority."

I don't care if I have a reconstruction or not.

I just want to be safe.

Debbie is painfully aware that cancer has already taken

both of her parents.

We were so close.

That was Dad in the last year before he died.

We didn't know at the time, but it was just the year after Mum,

so he went quite quickly.

Obviously, the kids were worried because they'd lost

their grandparents to cancer.

We all kind of hugged, got upset.

But I just said to them,

"We've got the best consultant."

Mr Paterson said mine's curable.

I'm not going to die.

There's no way I'm going to die.

As a highly respected surgeon,

Ian Paterson has hundreds of patients on his books.

Jade was just 16 when she became one of them.

I was at home having a shower.

Just remember feeling, like, a lump.

I didn't know how I'd not felt it before.

Your mind panics and goes straight to,

"Oh, my God, this is cancer."

This is really not good. Like, I've just started college.

I'm so young. I'm only 16.

You know, this isn't how it's supposed to be.

This isn't what's supposed to happen.

After making an appointment, Paterson examines Jade.

I remember feeling quite anxious around the unknown

of what that examination was going to look like,

which obviously at 16 is, like, a bit daunting.

But I remember immediately feeling quite at ease.

He made us feel like we were in safe hands

and he was going to look after us.

DR ELISABETH CARTER: A doctor-patient relationship

is something that's very special and unique.

The patient is in a very vulnerable position.

They're revealing parts of themselves physically or mentally

and asking for that person to assess them.

In the wrong hands, that kind of relationship can be exploited.

Following the examination, Paterson informs Jade

that she has a condition known as fibroadenoma.

It's a benign lump which, obviously, at that point, is a massive relief.

He basically says, "It's quite big, so we need to get it out.

"It could impact breast-feeding later on in life

"just because of the size of it. We'll book you in next week.

"It'll be all sorted."

Paterson has made his diagnosis without performing a biopsy,

but, shockingly, still books Jade in for invasive surgery.

The anxiety sitting in the bed before kind of being taken

down to surgery was...

Yeah, it was quite overwhelming.

I was petrified.

My mum and dad were crying in the room,

understanding the gravity of the situation

more than I could grasp at 16.

I was their little girl, kind of being wheeled off

and having to have this surgery,

and they obviously put the needle in and then I was gone.

Like Jade, Debbie is also referred for surgery.

To remove her lump, Paterson decides to perform a full mastectomy.

I had to go in the night before.

I was woken early in the morning.

They said, "Take your gown off,"

and they marked me where they were going to cut across the stomach,

erm, down my torso, round my breast.

And there was a mirror in the room and I thought I looked like

a patchwork quilt.

Being wheeled into theatre,

there was a whole thing in the back of my mind about,

"Will I come out of theatre?"

Because although I told the kids I was going to live,

I didn't inherently believe that because I'd watched my mum die.

The anaesthetist said, "I'm going to give you an injection now,"

and then I was under.

When you have this life-changing diagnosis,

this cancer diagnosis, your life is literally in the hands

of that surgeon because doctors have this authority,

they have this knowledge about the human body,

and medical professionals such as Mr Paterson

will automatically have a level of credibility, legitimacy and trust.

So you will follow their treatment plan and you will do whatever.

You'll throw whatever money you can at it

because everyone knows it can mean the difference between

life and death.

As I was coming round, I was in a world of pain.

I felt like I'd been hit by a bus.

Literally, I was hooked up to everything.

I had an oxygen mask on, morphine drip into my arm,

an epidural in my spine.

This nice Irish nurse monitored me through the night,

and I said to her, because I couldn't move,

I said, "Can you tuck me in?"

I wanted the blankets kind of around me.

So that got to me because it was like my mum, you know?

Like your mum tucking you in.

And, er...

I was just thinking about my mum...

..and, er...

..what happened to her.

But really missing her.

After five days in hospital,

Debbie returns home to recover.

I wanted to get back to normal, but I couldn't.

I was cut from hip to hip.

The stomach muscle gets re-routed under your chest wall,

so your core is affected.

He removed all my lymph nodes, so I've got a scar

right across my arm, under my arm.

And I did say to Paterson,

"There is no way that after six weeks

"you recover from this operation."

And you don't. So, to me, I was sold something that wasn't true.

I thought I had the best consultant.

I totally trusted him, but I still felt uneasy about that.

Paterson then books Debbie in for six months of chemotherapy.

The fact that I went into chemo so quickly after major surgery,

I was still healing.

Every time they put the chemo in,

every scar tissue ached and tingled.

You get to a point where your hair starts falling out.

My friend had some clippers and I asked her to shave my head.

I looked at it that I'd have to lose a year of my life,

having treatments and getting better.

What I didn't know was that all this was unnecessary.

Debbie isn't the only patient who is having doubts

about Mr Paterson's diagnosis.

We were really thankful of Paterson.

Thinking, "Thank God we found him and thank God he's looked after us."

But as it all unfolds, it's actually frightening how manipulative

and, like, how he fooled everybody.

Following a lumpectomy at the hands of surgeon Ian Paterson,

teenager Jade discovers she might require further treatment.

It's probably been over 18 months since the first operation,

but then found another lump, this time in my right breast.

Right, OK. Not great, but we'll go see Paterson again.

He'll sort it for us. Like, no problem.

It was the same routine.

Quick check and then, "Yeah, let's get you in for surgery."

Like during their first consultation,

Paterson immediately refers Jade for surgery

without having performed a biopsy.

Again, we were really pleased with the service

and how quickly we were getting seen and how quickly these things

were getting dealt with.

I'd had the surgery. Again, everything had gone well.

I was going back to college and I was feeling relieved.

Chapter closed. Done. We can just move on again.

But over the course of that next year, I had another operation.

And then, just over a year later, had the fourth one.

Each surgery, I guess it just became more...

..almost transactional.

We go and see Mr Paterson, he's going to take care of it,

and then we move on and hope that it doesn't happen again.

I was 19, I wanted to be out with my friends, enjoying life

and doing what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be constantly

in hospital having operations.

But I know that Mr Paterson will take care of me

and I trust him implicitly.

Paterson was almost a celebrity doctor amongst

the breast cancer patient community in the West Midlands.

As well as being popular with the individual patients,

he worked quite hard to become a face for the patient groups.

He was pictured with them on social media, in local newspapers.

He was their advocate, almost their hero.

He was quite often referred to as godlike,

as someone who was a saviour of cancer patients,

and people would be thrilled to be under his care.

So he's starting to develop his own brand, as it were,

as this god of surgery, and he's believing his own hype.

Among his NHS co-workers, however,

Paterson has a very different reputation.

What we've got is a very popular surgeon publicly,

but, privately, his colleagues found him arrogant, quite brusque,

and he didn't really value, I think, the opinions of those around him.

As doctors, we've created a system called

multidisciplinary team meetings

to bring together the respective professionals

within each field.

It's meant to be an open forum for such discussions

and then select the optimal treatment of their cancer.

Paterson is missing meetings.

He's not taking advice from his colleagues.

He's continuing unabated

because he believes that he's above the law.

He believes that because he is such a rock star celebrity surgeon

that he makes the rules, he doesn't follow them.

Worried about his conduct and the large number of patients

under his care, Paterson's colleagues voice their concerns

with the NHS hospital's management team.

DR JOHN CONIBEAR: That might be because they've noticed

something that seems unusual

and so they want to scrutinise that more closely

to get some factual sort of understanding of what's going on.

SHAUN LINTERN: There are doctors doing audits privately,

almost behind closed doors,

and these concerns were expressed internally.

Despite ongoing concerns about his conduct,

Paterson continues to examine and treat new patients.

They include Sarah Jane,

who had been told by her previous doctor that she has a benign lump

on her left breast.

I had fully expected that the results would be,

"Everything is OK."

When I actually was in the consultation

with Ian Paterson, the news was very different

from anything that I'd had before.

After reviewing her scans, Paterson informs her that she requires

immediate surgery at a private hospital.

He said that the results are not good.

There is a lump that wasn't there before.

It's growing quite rapidly.

He said, "There won't be enough time for you to get this done

"on the NHS. The only thing you can really do is to

"come and have the lumpectomy with me

"to take out the lump that was growing."

I was very concerned and said,

"Well, what about a second opinion to test

"to see if there are any cancer cells there?"

And he was a little bit sort of offended

that I'd sort of suggested that.

He said that there was no time and,

"You really need to get it looked at straight away."

I felt absolutely terrified and utterly railroaded.

But I was reassured that you could do self-funding

for private health care.

Unable to pay for the surgery herself,

Sarah Jane turns to her family for help.

And they were absolutely horrified that this was so dramatic

and so sudden.

And, of course, when it's something that's...that's

terrifying like that, just find the money and that's it.

Sarah Jane's parents agree to pay for her surgery

and she is booked into hospital.

I was absolutely dreading the whole idea of surgery.

He explained that the lumpectomy would involve an incision

and it would be a scar across the side.

He would be able to do it quite quickly with a minimum of scarring.

Simple surgery. Don't worry, it will all be OK.

Once you were lying down,

it was at that point that they said,

"You have to sign the release form,"

so that, if Paterson found that it was worse

than he had thought,

then it was a release to say that he could do mastectomy

or whatever was necessary.

It was just so utterly shocking to hear this.

Oh, my God.

And then it was the anaesthetic and the countdown and...out.

Sarah Jane is just one of hundreds of patients to go under the knife

in Ian Paterson's operating theatre.

SHAUN LINTERN: He was getting a reputation for

quick surgeries as well. He could get through a lot of patients

in a short amount of time.

When you can create your own pipeline of income,

it's really lucrative. It was great for business.

Unlike in the NHS, when a surgeon works in the private sector,

the more they operate, the more they can earn.

If you work within the private medical sector,

you enter into a almost self-employed situation.

If you treat a patient,

then the clinician will receive that income.

Quite simply, Paterson did very well out of this work.

He had multiple properties.

He had an Aston Martin that he was seen driving around in.

He would seem to have lived a lavish lifestyle.

So clearly there was evidence that his income was significant.

After waking up from surgery,

Sarah Jane discovers Paterson appears to have

changed her procedure mid-operation.

My sister was there

and I made her look because I was so horrified.

The scar was in a completely different place.

Paterson came the next morning.

I said, "Well, how is that? That's not what you said.

"I don't understand."

And he said, "Well, when you were lying down,

"I was able to get a better angle,

"making sure that I had a better scar in a better place

"that was less obvious."

You know, "Yes, it's a better result," kind of a thing.

As she recovers, Paterson gives Sarah Jane some positive news.

And it was at that point when he said,

"You will be relieved to know that it wasn't cancer."

It was like, "Well, what do you mean?"

Is he saying that the operation was actually done for no reason?

Sarah Jane appears to have been subjected to

unnecessary and extensive surgery

yet feels unable to lodge a complaint.

When a patient is under a doctor's care,

particularly for something as emotive as cancer,

they probably can't feel as though that they can

voice their concerns because they are in the hands of an expert

that's been trained for years and they know the right treatment.

And also, you have everyone around saying,

"You're so lucky you have this guy."

He's got this established track record.

He has this superstar status, this kind of celebrity around him.

Ian Paterson is completely protected by his reputation

at this point.

I was led to believe that he was the best breast consultant

in the area.

I had absolutely no idea that he would tell me

anything other than the truth.

Ian Paterson is a highly respected breast surgeon

who has treated hundreds of people.

But his colleagues and patients

are voicing growing concerns about his conduct.

I had been contacted by a lady who had had

a mastectomy in 2006.

She had then required further surgery in 2009

because she'd had a recurrence of breast cancer.

She was reviewing her care, thinking,

"If I had a mastectomy which removed all of that breast tissue,

"why did I have a recurrence in the breast tissue?

"That doesn't make sense to me."

So she asked me to look into the case.

She told me that the surgeon was Ian Paterson.

He had come really highly recommended.

I did some research.

I looked at the GMC register

to see whether there were any concerns about him.

He was there with a full practising certificate.

There wasn't really anything negative about him.

When Kashmir studies the woman's medical notes,

she discovers something unusual.

We then instructed a medical expert to review the care

that this lady had received.

The information in the letters to the GP and the operation notes

were so scanty and sparse.

Very little information. A drawing of a breast

with, like, an "M" for mastectomy.

Why was he being so secretive?

Kashmir also uncovers medical reports

which reveal the woman's mastectomy had not been performed correctly.

It clearly showed that there was toxic breast tissue

that should have been removed.

And that's when I thought, "Oh, my goodness.

"That's why the cancer had come back."

At that time, I thought,

"There must be an explanation for this.

"It's not something that a doctor would do deliberately."

As doctors, their job is to do the best for their patients.

During his cancer surgeries,

Paterson is performing what he calls

"cleavage-sparing mastectomies"

on some of his patients.

Before coming across the term

"cleavage-sparing mastectomy",

I wasn't aware of that previously in my professional career.

By intentionally leaving behind breast tissue

would seem to conflict with the clinical decision that's been made

in the best interests of that patient.

Following Kashmir's discovery,

the patient decides to sue Ian Paterson for negligence.

This breast surgeon has been treating patients

for a number of years. That's when you start thinking,

"Are there more cases where he's carried this out?"

I put an article together, put it out on our website

as a call for action.

"If anybody's concerned, please let me know."

Word of the potential legal proceedings soon spreads

among Paterson's former patients.

It was call after call after call after call

from women who had been treated by Ian Paterson.

SHAUN LINTERN: I think that's when you began to realise

maybe there was something more sinister

and more concerning going on.

As the former patients come forward,

the scale of Ian Paterson's clinical negligence becomes clear.

I don't think anyone really appreciated

just how large and serious this was.

Some of the mastectomy patients would wake up in hospital beds

with more tissue than they really expected,

and they would raise this and he would just say,

"It's fatty tissue, it's nothing to worry about."

You know, it was sold to them as a good thing, a positive thing.

We had about 100 patients.

The majority of them were women

who'd had a cleavage-sparing mastectomy.

He has conned them in terms of the procedures

that they've undergone.

They had no idea that most of that toxic breast tissue

is left in situ and didn't give them any information

about what he'd actually done.

He was a charming doctor that told them

he was going to save their lives.

They put all of their faith in him

so, when they woke up, they had no reason to question

the treatment he was providing to them.

Why would he do this to these vulnerable people

who had come to him and placed their lives in his hands?

It beggars belief.

The increasing number of complaints against Ian Paterson

forces the hospital where he works to take action.

He's been operating on thousands of women for more than a decade now.

The Trust management are very worried about what he's been doing,

especially about the cleavage-sparing mastectomies.

They begin to see this surgeon as a liability.

In 2011, Paterson was suspended from NHS and private practice.

The women felt very much let down.

They were very angry.

They also felt that it was bigger than just negligence.

They felt that he should be held accountable personally

for what he'd done.

When you operate on someone in a way that they didn't consent to,

it is a criminal assault.

And so now real questions start to be asked about Paterson's

culpability as an actual criminal.

While the police launch a criminal investigation,

Paterson's hospitals recall his former patients for reassessment.

JADE: Just hearing whispers that some of the cancer patients

that have been treated at Parkway were getting recalled.

And, yeah, didn't think it affected kind of us at all

until we got a letter to say that we were being recalled too.

SARAH JANE: I received a letter absolutely out of the blue.

"Please come and see a breast consultant

"to go through exactly what it was

"Ian Paterson had done."

I was absolutely terrified.

How bad could it be? What could this mean?

DEBBIE: "Our investigations have revealed some irregularities

"in his practice that may go against recognised treatment standards.

"We are keen to ensure that every patient whose notes

"have been reviewed is given the opportunity

"for a face-to-face consultation to discuss their care."

When I read this, I thought,

"What the hell is happening?"

Medical consultants interview each of Paterson's patients

to assess their cases.

JADE: He starts going through the operations and saying

that he might not have done some of the surgeries.

I was thinking, "Well, you don't know me.

"You weren't there when I first came in.

"Mr Paterson's looked after us and taken care of us

"for the last few years, so I wouldn't be healthy

"without what he's done."

We just talked through what tests had been done.

It was only at that point that it was, like,

no biopsy had been done on any of the lumps to check what they were,

and I was totally shocked.

The fact that Ian Paterson had not conducted any biopsies on Jade

means the four surgeries she underwent

may not have been necessary.

He was telling me that I'd gone through everything

for no reason at all.

I just couldn't believe it.

I didn't want to believe that, actually,

this guy that we really liked and really trusted,

we'd been conned by almost.

You trusted somebody so much to allow them to cut you open

that you almost don't want to then admit, like,

why did I let them do that to me,

especially at such a vulnerable age

between those years of, like, 16 and 19?

Sarah Jane also agrees to be re-examined by another consultant.

I was told I had to have another ultrasound

to see what actually was the situation.

It showed that the original that...that was

the one that he was supposed to have taken out

was still there.

That was just so utterly shocking

and utterly devastating.

I've been through all of that just to lose a healthy part of my breast

and for the original problem to still be there.

In Solihull, Debbie asks the legal team to assess the treatment

she received while under Ian Paterson's care.

And the only way I got a definitive report on what happened to me

was by going to a true independent person to look at my notes.

A review of the scans he took of her lump

reveals something shocking.

He said I had a very small tumour,

grade one cancer, no spread to my lymph nodes,

which meant that I did not need chemotherapy

and I did not need the huge operation that he put me through.

He actually measured each scar under my arm, around my breast,

from hip to hip.

Photographed me a number of times.

He read back everything that Paterson had done

and it really, really hit me, you know,

that the amount of scars I'd got that were so unnecessary.

I was so upset, I sobbed.

A consultant who you trusted implicitly.

All I needed was a lumpectomy.

It was a less than two centimetre lump,

which is classed as small in cancer terms.

So they could have just cut that lump out.

I'd be back at work within weeks, probably.

DR JOHN CONIBEAR: Generally speaking, the more complex

the procedure you're performing,

the more time it theoretically takes to do that treatment

and therefore the higher cost you can bill for it.

It's something like 40 grand with all the stuff I had done

and all the meetings and all the scans.

He was making a lot of money.

Despite undergoing extensive and expensive surgeries,

Debbie remains unsure whether Paterson even removed

the cancerous lump he initially identified.

He categorically stated that I had almost 50% breast tissue left,

but the fact that he left that breast tissue when he told me

he'd removed it, it's always in the back of my mind

that cancer could return.

You know, I was so angry.

He'd mutilated me just for money.

SHAUN LINTERN: Paterson exploited weaknesses

in the health care system.

We know that activity equals money.

So there is that financial incentive in the private sector.

And the more they do, the more they earn.

And Paterson exploited that system ruthlessly.

He was one of the most productive in terms of volume of patients

he was going through for those hospitals,

bringing in this avalanche of cash.

A doctor is in a unique position to be able to execute fraud like this

because there is that element of trust.

He also has that authority and power position.

This shows that Mr Paterson is a con artist

of the most callous nature.

To prey on people's vulnerabilities and fears

for his own benefit just shows that he has no moral boundaries.

It was everywhere. It was in the local press, the national press,

radio stations.

NEWS REPORTER: Up to 1,000 women may have been affected by this.

There could be up to 700 cases of unregulated mastectomy procedures

and up to 450 women may have undergone unnecessary operations.

West Midlands Police have now launched a criminal investigation.

This was the platform we needed to get the volume of cases

coming in because then we had around 400 new instructions.

Initially, there were two types of claim

of what Mr Paterson was doing.

Either an under treatment,

cleavage-sparing mastectomies,

where an inadequate amount of breast tissue had been taken out

which allowed the possible recurrence of breast cancer.

Or people who actually didn't have breast cancer

and Mr Paterson was carrying out surgery as if they had.

It makes your blood curdle that he's abused them to that level.

My view at that time was just take them all on.

We need to act for all of these women.

If they've told us that they've had an operation by Paterson,

then we're going to look at their case.

This Paterson case is so much larger than any of the other group actions

against an individual surgeon that we've ever had.

It made me very determined we should be able to get compensation

for all of them,

but also criminal charges against Mr Paterson.

After amassing evidence against Ian Paterson,

the police charge him and set a date for trial.

This is not just incompetence, this is brutality.

This person is pretending to be somebody who's saving women,

but actually he's taking money from them.

But he's also harming them physically and also medically.

Following a criminal investigation,

surgeon Mr Ian Paterson is facing 17 charges

of wounding with intent

and three charges of unlawful wounding.

I didn't feel up to going to the trial.

I didn't like the idea of being in the same room as him,

but lots of other people did go.

DEBBIE: I was with another Paterson patient who's a friend,

and we would very often travel together to Nottingham

because we both wanted to see what was happening.

I wanted to see his face, I wanted to look him in the eye.

In February 2017, the trial against Ian Paterson begins

at Nottingham Crown Court.

KASHMIR UPPAL: The Crown Prosecution decided to take

a cross-section of cases and limit the number of victims named

in the criminal case to ten,

and those cases were reflective of the general pattern

of treatment that these people had had.

The expert witness, Gordon Wishart, gave evidence,

and he was categorical that these operations were not necessary,

that what he'd done had been assaults on these patients.

Each of the ten patients chooses to take to the stand

to provide testimony against their former doctor.

LINDA MILLBAND: It was really unnerving having to listen to it,

having to do it in front of Mr Paterson.

It was the first time they'd seen him outside the surgery.

And since knowing that their terrible wounds

and injuries were caused as a result of totally unnecessary surgery.

One of the women, I think he must have done six operations,

and then he did a mastectomy and there was nothing wrong with her.

The psychological impact that's had on her life.

Watching her give evidence, it was really, really hard.

And family members were so upset.

I felt really angry thinking,

"You did all these unnecessary operations on her

"and now you made her come to court, stand here,

"say everything that happened to her

"and then be cross-examined," that...that...

Oh, I thought that was...

..quite barbaric.

The testimonies provide new insights into how Paterson

manipulated his patients over a period of several years.

SHAUN LINTERN: Paterson sold the cleavage-sparing mastectomies

as a kind of solution to the cosmetic appearance, if you like.

It would be good for them, good for the husbands.

He was helping them, and that wasn't the case.

DEBBIE: I don't think he likes women.

He obviously saw them in a sexual way

because he's projecting how he feels onto their body image.

We heard everything.

How he became quite adept at knowing people were vulnerable

and saying the right words to think they had cancer

and that the only way to be sure is to get that cut out.

He had no empathy for you.

What he also did, he'd say,

"Have you got a sister? This is hereditary."

I know one woman, not just her, but two of her sisters were affected

because he used that in pulling other people into his business.

He wasn't just doing breast surgery,

he was also doing all these kinds of procedures and invasive surgeries.

His first port of call was always, "We need to cut it out."

So, for me, he had this kind of twisted thing about his scalpel

and cutting into people. And there was a kind of a power thing there

with him as well. A man was given 14 colonoscopies.

So this was all based on him putting the fear of God into that person.

I truly believe there was an element of him enjoying that.

DR ELISABETH CARTER: What Paterson did is for his own gratification.

This shows a level of malevolence beyond the financial.

It shows a power play feeding his ego.

He is able to perform any kind of surgeries on individuals

just because he wants to,

and it is completely dark and disturbing.

I know he's a con artist. 100% con artist.

After listening to his former patients testify,

Ian Paterson takes to the stand to defend himself.

He smiled at me, but the look on my face, he knew straight away,

"Oh, clearly she's not here to support me."

He defended it, saying that those operations were required,

but clearly they weren't.

LINDA MILLBAND: He looked as if he was the victim.

Just looking totally innocent,

looking at everybody with disdain

and not really as if he understood what he was there for.

There was no suggestion of any remorse whatsoever.

His defence solicitor basically gave out all his good attributes.

He trained at Harvard, he did a paper, he played rugby for Ireland.

He painted this picture of a really fantastic man,

and I was getting angry listening to it.

When are they going to start questioning him?

When are they going to ask about what he's done to people?

I phoned my husband and said, "He's going to get away with this.

"You know, I think he's winning them over."

In April 2017, following a seven-week trial,

the jury announces that it has reached a verdict

on the case against Ian Paterson.

We ran so quickly back to the courtroom.

We were desperate to get there to hear the verdicts.

Thankfully, we got to the public gallery

and then the judge said to the jury foreman,

"How do you find?"

And it was, "Guilty, guilty, guilty."

SARAH JANE: Kashmir texted one word, "Guilty."

I'm like, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God."

You know, thank God.

Thank God.

JADE: I guess it felt like justice,

but I think it took a good while to process

what that actually then meant.

The ripple effect of those affected is not just that person,

it goes so wide.

DEBBIE: I managed to find a quiet corner in the court.

I ran up a flight of stairs where there was nobody

and I rang Bob and I broke the news to him.

"He's guilty. He's been found guilty."

And Bob was, "Yes! Yes!"

Just felt such relief.

KASHMIR UPPAL: There was a real sense of camaraderie there.

We felt, "Gosh, yeah, we've done it."

We owe it to them for being so brave, for telling their story.

Today, the consultant Ian Paterson

has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his terrible crimes.

But I'm sure many of the victims will say that 15 years

is not nearly long enough.

It will take a very, very long time for that trust to be rebuilt

between the public and the medical professionals.

All of that was completely unnecessary.

Like, it didn't need to happen.

Like, if that was my daughter now,

that's when it makes me really angry.

All the unnecessary trauma, especially at such a vulnerable age

between those years of, like, 16 and 19.

That is when you're starting to discover who you are as a person.

Could that have impacted on who I am today?

Probably.

In August 2017,

following an appeal by the Solicitor General,

the court increases Ian Paterson's sentence to 20 years.

Ian Paterson was able to harm people.

He was able to make money off that harm, which is appalling.

He's one of the worst criminals that we've seen in the NHS

and the private sector for decades.

Despite being put behind bars,

dozens of inquests are ongoing

which will determine whether more of Ian Paterson's patients

died an unnatural death as a result of his treatment.

We know the coroner is looking at deaths of Ian Paterson patients.

These relate to patients who had

the cleavage-sparing mastectomy

and then went on to have a recurrence of cancer

and sadly died.

To see a doctor like Paterson

is really sad to see because it threatens the reputation of us all.

I think one thing that we should strive to do is to understand

how they've existed in plain sight.

Debbie continues to campaign for the recommendations

of the government-led inquiry into Paterson to be implemented.

To date, more than 750 former patients have received compensation

for the suffering they endured at his hands.

But for them and many others,

the physical and emotional scars they bear may never heal.

You've got people who are just utterly devastated

by what's happened.

People who, like me, have avoided any other doctor.

People who are absolutely terrified of anything like that.

My kids, I mean, they had to watch me go through all of this.

And I think it's harder to watch somebody than it is to

go through it yourself.

I'm not being overdramatic when I say he's probably

shortened my life because all I needed was a lumpectomy.

But I have been through invasive surgery,

chemo that poisons your system.

It really sickens me to think that he was such a trusted person.

You wouldn't ever suspect that he was cutting people's flesh

for money and telling them they had cancer when they didn't.

You know, that sickens me.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media