Mutilated By The Man They Trusted …Their Doctor

It’s the shocking crime that has rocked the nation. Here, Woman investigates…

- Kristina Beanland

Do you trust your doctor? well, why wouldn’t you? when we’re at our most desperate – suffering from painful ailments or confusing symptoms – we believe that, somehow, they’ll make us better.

So, when Dr Ian Paterson told his patients they needed surgery to protect – even cure – themselves from cancer, of course, they obliged. After all, the world-renowned doctor with 30 years of experience wouldn’t lie… would he?

Only now, that same doctor is facing a lifetime behind bars after he was found guilty of needlessly mutilating his patients. Using false diagnoses and scare tactics he’d put women under the knife just to satisfy his own twisted desires.

Solicitor Ally Taft, who acted on behalf of some of the patients, wonders if he had a God complex. She said, ‘He was coming to the rescue, like a knight in shining armour.’

Here, we speak to one mum who knows only too well the suffering he’s caused…

Leanne Joseph, 36, lives with her husband, mark, 45, and daughter, Ruby, eight, in Staffordshire.

It was September 2006 when I noticed a brown discharge coming from my nipple. I went to the GP who referred me to a specialist. But, too worried to wait, Mark and I did some research online and booked a private appointment for £150, at the Spire Little Aston Hospital.