\n<\/p>\n
O<\/span>f all the things that happened in the fraught days after 72-year-old Liz Spooner had her leg amputated at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro in 2022, one memory remains vivid in the mind of her daughter, Faye Harrison. Liz\u2019s surgery had taken much longer than anticipated, Faye remembers, and, delirious after the anaesthetic and morphine, Liz had begun to refuse food and medication. That\u2019s when Faye was ushered into a side room with a consultant surgeon.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was smiley. He came across as quite charming and caring,\u201d Faye recalls. He ran through a long list of the medications Liz was taking, and began explaining why she needed them. \u201cI remember looking down \u2013 you look down at the floor a lot when you have these kinds of conversations \u2013 and I noticed he\u2019d got metal sticks coming out of his trouser legs.\u201d Faye blinks in disbelief at the memory. \u201cI thought, blimey, he\u2019s operated on my mum, but he\u2019s also<\/em> an amputee.\u201d<\/p>\n Neil Hopper was a celebrity in the world of vascular surgery \u2013 the specialist field involving veins and arteries, and therefore amputations. He had been a consultant for a decade by the time of Liz\u2019s operation, and had received awards for clinical excellence. But in May 2019, following suspected sepsis, Hopper himself had had to undergo double below-the-knee amputations. When he walked into the surgical theatre on prosthetic legs in January 2020 ready to perform amputations on patients again, a BBC camera crew was there to film his heroic comeback. He talked about his experience of sepsis on the sofa of ITV\u2019s This Morning, dressed in shorts that proudly exposed his prosthetics. Using the handle @bionicsurgeon, he had documented his experiences as a disabled doctor on social media. He even applied to the European Space Agency, hoping to be the world\u2019s first astronaut with a disability. He won multiple accolades: named one of the coolest people in Cornwall, and one of the bravest people in Britain.<\/p>\n <\/span>Hopper tells his story on ITV\u2019s This Morning, 6 March 2020.<\/span> Photograph: Ken McKay\/ITV\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n But Faye chose not to mention his legs during their 15-minute conversation about her mum. Instead, she made some small talk: noting Hopper\u2019s Welsh accent, she declared Cornwall\u2019s beaches to be far better than Wales\u2019s. It was an odd scenario, but there was at least something reassuring about knowing the man caring for her mother was himself an amputee. \u201cI remember thinking, God, he must have amazing empathy.\u201d Coming out of the side room, Faye told her husband about the extraordinary surgeon she\u2019d just met. \u201cIt\u2019s awful, really, but I remember saying, \u2018He\u2019s got prosthetic legs \u2013 and his name\u2019s Hopper<\/em>.\u2019 Because, in times like that, you look for anything that\u2019s going to make you laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n It had been a harrowing few days for Liz\u2019s family, but the ordeal had begun a year earlier, when she had fallen on the beach and broken her leg. A people person, Liz was a former nurse who went on to manage a children\u2019s home in Birmingham for 12 years before settling in Cornwall. After her husband\u2019s death in 2009, she filled her days volunteering at the RNLI shop in Rock. It was after a shift there, while walking her dog, that Liz tripped and broke her left femur. It didn\u2019t heal properly and, six months later, she had surgery to insert a metal rod in her leg, which then became infected. In\u00a0July 2022, Liz was told she needed to make a choice: she could either take antibiotics for the rest of her life, which could stop working, or have her leg amputated. \u201cGet rid of that bloody leg, get rid of the infection, and she\u2019s going to be all right, we thought,\u201d Faye says.<\/p>\n double quotation markShe was never my mum again, after that operation<\/span>Liz Spooner (on the right) and her daughter Faye Harrison in Spain in 2017.<\/span> Photograph: courtesy of Faye Harrison<\/p>\n They were expecting the procedure to take five or six hours, but Faye tells me it took 11 or 12. Recovering on the high-dependency unit, Liz became paranoid and delusional. She told Faye there were ghosts in her room; that people were out to get her; that she was being secretly filmed. \u201cThe nurses and doctors were saying this was normal after a very big anaesthetic and all the morphine. But she was never really out of that state. She was never my mum again, after that operation.\u201d Liz contracted hospital-acquired pneumonia and, nine days after her surgery, she died.<\/p>\n Faye says that no one ever explained why her mum\u2019s procedure had taken so much longer than anticipated. If it had been shorter, she wondered, then perhaps Liz wouldn\u2019t have been so delirious afterwards, or she might not have been in hospital for long enough to contract the pneumonia that killed her. But Liz had always believed in the NHS, and so does Faye \u2013 she works as an NHS speech and language therapist. She\u00a0assumed her mum had just been very unlucky. \u201cNo\u00a0reason to doubt anything,\u201d she shrugs.<\/p>\n Then, three years after her mother\u2019s death, in September 2025, Faye was listening to the news on her drive into work, and heard Neil Hopper\u2019s name. He had been jailed after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation and three counts of possession of extreme pornography. The fraud conviction related to claims he had made on his health insurance after the amputation of his legs. Hopper had not had sepsis, after all \u2013 the injuries that caused his legs to be amputated were self-inflicted. He had deliberately harmed himself, because he had an amputation fetish.<\/p>\n Faye felt as if she was going to vomit. \u201cOh my God, I felt sick that he was even near<\/em> my mum.\u201d<\/p>\n Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust issued a\u00a0statement on the day Hopper was convicted. \u201cWe want to reassure the public that our exhaustive investigations have found no evidence whatsoever to indicate any risk or harm to patients at our hospitals,\u201d it said. But Faye was not reassured.\u201cWho gets their own legs amputated when there\u2019s nothing wrong with them? And then to think that he\u2019d been a doctor<\/em>. <\/em>And then \u2013 even worse \u2013 a doctor who does amputations on other people.\u201d Questions swirled around her head. \u201cMy mum was in that operating room a very, very long time. Was something going on?\u201d<\/p>\n Across Cornwall and beyond, Hopper\u2019s former patients and their families were asking similar questions. Here was a surgeon prepared to lie for years to his colleagues, his patients, the wider public and his closest family about the nature of his injuries \u2013 a man who, on the basis of the extreme pornography he was convicted of possessing,<\/strong> revelled in seeing people in excruciating pain. How could anyone be sure he never posed any risk to patients?<\/p>\n H<\/span>opper was resolutely silent after his arrest in March 2023. He replied \u201cNo comment\u201d in his two police interviews; he did not speak in court. Perhaps the greatest insight into his mindset and character comes from comparing his Bionic Surgeon persona with the truth that emerged during his criminal trial and his fitness to practise tribunal. The contrast lays bare the questions that remain for Hopper\u2019s former patients \u2013 and his former employers.<\/p>\n On the surface, at least, Hopper seemed to live a\u00a0very conventional life before he lost his legs. The son of two nurses, he grew up in Aberystwyth and Swansea, and attended a private boarding school. He studied at University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, earning a first-class degree in anatomical sciences and an honours degree in medicine. He met his future wife at medical school, they had a son and a daughter, and the family went to Australia for a year, where Hopper worked as a vascular surgeon in Sydney, before returning to the UK in 2013 to be a consultant surgeon, both at the Royal Cornwall hospital and at the Duchy, Cornwall\u2019s only private hospital. \u201cI developed a keen interest in vascular surgery mainly because it was reconstructive, no two operations were the same, and having to operate on all parts of the body provided the variety to keep my interest,\u201d Hopper told the Western Mail in 2021.<\/p>\n In April 2019, so his story went, Hopper and his daughter became unwell during a family camping trip. \u201cMy daughter got better but I didn\u2019t, so my family abandoned me at home thinking I had a stomach bug. I started feeling a bit achy so took some paracetamol and went to bed,\u201d he told Cornwall Live in February 2020. Later, Hopper\u2019s wife and children were away visiting his in-laws; when his wife rang him and he \u201cspoke gibberish\u201d on the phone to her she called a\u00a0friend, who went around to check on him, found the front door open, and called an ambulance. \u201cThe next thing I remember is being in intensive care,\u201d Hopper continued. \u201cI remember my feet hurting a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markIn the chatrooms and on the message boards, members who had undergone verified castration, amputation or genital removal were given special badges of honour<\/p>\n Hopper told doctors he\u2019d been vomiting and had diarrhoea. He underwent extensive testing, with medical staff bewildered by the cause of his condition. In the end, they suspected sepsis. \u201cI\u00a0could see my toes had gone blue so at that point I\u00a0knew where I was sort of headed,\u201d he\u00a0later told the BBC; blue skin on the soles of the feet is a\u00a0recognised sign of sepsis. For two weeks, his medical colleagues tried to improve the blood supply to his legs. He was transferred from the Royal Cornwall hospital to Derriford, a specialist training hospital, for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. But it was in vain. Once amputation began to look inevitable, he said to the BBC, he \u201ccouldn\u2019t help but imagine the mechanics\u201d of what it would entail. \u201cThe thought of power tools being used on me was icky.\u201d Hopper\u2019s toes were removed on 10\u00a0May, and, when that wasn\u2019t deemed enough, he opted to have both his lower legs removed on 17 May.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m now a bilateral below-knee amputee, which is quite ironic, given my job,\u201d Hopper declared in the first video uploaded to his YouTube channel, six months after his surgery; he had already started calling himself the Bionic Surgeon by then. In another video, uploaded to mark his first year as an amputee, he boasted about getting an all-expenses paid trip to Salford to be on BBC Breakfast. In early 2022, he revealed he was undergoing assessments in Hamburg with the European Space Agency, in a bid to become the world\u2019s first para\u2011astronaut; he got down to the final 27\u00a0candidates. \u201cWhen I was ill, somebody told me that I\u2019d end up doing Ted Talks and all sorts, and I said absolutely not, this was never going to be a\u00a0big part of my life, and I\u2019ve completely fallen into that trap,\u201d he chuckled on BBC Radio Cornwall. He knew his injuries had opened up a\u00a0particular kind of opportunity for him. \u201cMy life is more interesting because of what\u2019s happened to me,\u201d he told a Welsh BBC documentary crew, just before his arrest.<\/p>\n But Hopper\u2019s journey to becoming the Bionic Surgeon actually began the year before he lost his legs, with a\u00a0very different set of videos. It was revealed during his criminal trial that, in August 2018, Hopper used the email address adecentguyincornwall@gmail.com to set up the profile \u201cAdmiroDoc\u201d on eunuchmaker.com, a pay-per-view fetish website featuring videos of men and boys either maiming themselves or allowing others to mutilate them on camera. Marius Gustavson, the Norwegian man living in London who ran the site, had had his own penis, nipple and left leg removed. Gustavson is currently serving a\u00a0life sentence for multiple offences, including causing grievous bodily harm with intent.<\/p>\n \u2018I<\/span> can see how Neil Hopper got into it,\u201d says the man who was known as \u201cMichael\u201d during Gustavson\u2019s trial. \u201cI don\u2019t think he just got it into his head one day to type in \u2018Eunuch Maker\u2019 \u2013 I think he was on various fetish sites looking for more and more extreme stuff and found his way on there. A little bit of passing interest, and then as soon as you\u2019re on that site, it becomes an echo chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael was the first person to report Gustavson to the police, after Gustavson had castrated him on video and branded him with the initials \u201cEM\u201d. Michael had been in a vulnerable mental state and was using drugs when Gustavson mutilated him; he went to the police when he was in recovery a year later, and realised he\u2019d been the victim of what the judge in Gustavson\u2019s trial would call \u201clittle more than human butchery\u201d. \u201cThe thing with that website is, it made all of this seem absolutely normal,\u201d Michael says.<\/p>\n The site operated between 14 January 2018 and 1\u00a0March 2021, during which time Gustavson earned almost \u00a3300,000 from more than 22,800 paying users from across the globe. (The victims who appeared in the videos were promised money from the revenue; Michael says his castration earned him \u00a360, which didn\u2019t even cover the cost of his travel.) In the chatrooms and on the message boards, members who had undergone verified castration, amputation or genital removal were given special badges of honour. \u201cIt was a community. Very supportive, very welcoming and very enthusiastic,\u201d Michael tells me.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were always rumours of, oh, there\u2019s an actual<\/em> surgeon here, there\u2019s an actual<\/em> nurse,\u201d he continues. There was<\/em> a nurse, it transpired: Nathan Arnold, who received a suspended sentence after he was found guilty of GBH for removing Gustavson\u2019s nipple. And there was Hopper. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely horrifying to learn that a consultant surgeon in the NHS really was there.\u201d<\/p>\n I am loath to describe the videos Hopper was watching \u2013 which I learned about when I attended his criminal court hearing via video link \u2013 but the broad details are relevant to his patients. Hopper was performing surgery on them in his professional life while watching people writhing in agony in his private life; this was pornography so sadistic and extreme that possession of it added 10 months to the 22-month prison sentence he received for insurance fraud.<\/p>\n The first video cost Hopper \u00a310; it shows Gustavson castrating another man. The second, costing \u00a335, features a man tied to a bed while Gustavson rolls dice to decide which body parts to remove; the man ended up losing his penis and testicles, and bled so much that Gustavson called an ambulance, all with the camera still rolling. In a third video, also costing Hopper \u00a335, a man cuts off his own penis and holds it up to the camera.<\/p>\n double quotation markHopper does not regret the facts of the amputations \u2013 he had wanted it for 20 years \u2013 but he regrets the dishonesty and falsehood <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve watched them thousands of times,\u201d Hopper enthusiastically messaged Gustavson on WhatsApp, singling out the video where paramedics had to be called for particular praise.<\/p>\n Hopper was paying for these videos a few months after operating on a woman I\u2019ll call Joan. We meet in a\u00a0cafe in west London; she doesn\u2019t want me to say where she lives or use her real name. Joan had booked into the private Duchy hospital to have a varicose vein removed in advance of her daughter\u2019s wedding. \u201cHe was the vein man at the Duchy,\u201d she tells me. \u201cHe seemed very nice, really easy-going. He\u2019s a sort of cuddly man \u2013 slightly overweight and jolly-looking. I warmed to him.\u201d She thought it was going to be straightforward. \u201cMy mother and one of my sisters had had veins removed before, and neither of them had ever had any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the 30-minute procedure, Hopper was in charge of removing Joan\u2019s vein and administering the anaesthetic. \u201cI hurt a lot<\/em>,\u201d she says, fixing me with her gaze. At first, she didn\u2019t want to make a fuss. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0not a\u00a0baby, I\u2019m not a coward. I thought, I\u2019ll just put up with it until it\u2019s over. But it got to the point where I couldn\u2019t<\/em> put up with it. I had to say, this really, really hurts.\u201d Hopper could see her squirming, and hear her pleading for him to stop. He said he\u2019d give her more anaesthetic, but it made no difference. \u201cIt still hurt just as much. It\u00a0felt like he was pulling<\/em> a vein out of my leg without any anaesthetic at all.\u201d<\/p>\n After the operation, Hopper refused to let Joan pay for it. \u201cIt was a few hundred pounds, and he let me off the bill. Private doctors don\u2019t do that \u2013 they just don\u2019t.\u201d She shakes her head. \u201cAt the time I thought, what a\u00a0nice man \u2013 that\u2019s so reasonable of him, because he had hurt me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Joan was alarmed to read about Hopper\u2019s conviction in the newspaper. \u201cIt was unnerving.\u201d She hadn\u2019t followed the details of the case, and didn\u2019t know about the videos Hopper had been watching, until I told her about them in the broadest possible terms. \u201cIt makes me feel physically sick. It\u2019s beyond belief,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019m glad I know, actually: I thought I was imagining it. It felt like he hadn\u2019t used anaesthetic, when I had been told he had. But I no longer know for sure that he did.\u201d She shakes her head. \u201cHe was obviously deranged, and I\u2019d been at his mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramsay Health Care UK, the parent company behind the Duchy hospital, said it was unable to comment on any individual episodes of patient care. \u201cDuring his period of holding practising privileges with Ramsay Health Care UK, no significant concerns were raised regarding Mr\u00a0Hopper\u2019s clinical practice or any risk to patient safety,\u201d a\u00a0spokesperson said in a statement. \u201cWe want to reassure our patients, partners and the wider community that we remain fully committed to the highest standards of professional conduct and clinical governance.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markThere\u2019s going to be more people discovered through this \u2013 are we going to have a police officer next? A politician?<\/p>\n Towards the end of 2018, Hopper messaged Gustavson asking him to fix a fault that meant he could no longer watch the videos he\u2019d bought. \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d Hopper eventually wrote, \u201cmy tastes are more exotic these days.\u201d<\/p>\n Gustavson caused his own left leg to be amputated in February 2019. He had placed his foot in a bucket of dry ice for eight hours (uploading a short video of the process to his website) before going to hospital where his leg was ultimately removed below the knee.<\/p>\n By April, Hopper was asking for advice on how he could do the same. Gustavson sent him a digital document with instructions, equipment lists and diagrams, telling Hopper where to order the dry ice and how to access the dark web to buy opiates for pain relief. The prosecution in Hopper\u2019s trial argued that Hopper was not groomed: he was an equal and willing participant. \u201cWow,\u201d Hopper messaged Gustavson, \u201cI\u2019ve\u00a0dreamed of this for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n With his wife and children away at his in-laws and both feet submerged in dry ice, Hopper sent Gustavson periodic WhatsApp updates. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be awesome being a double amputee,\u201d he wrote. Then, he sent Gustavson a photograph of his erect penis. He continued messaging Gustavson from his hospital bed after the amputation, thanking him for making it all possible, and sending a photo of his bandaged stumps, saying how \u201csexy\u201d it was. \u201cIt feels so cool. No feet!\u201d<\/p>\n G<\/span>ustavson was arrested in 2021. The police investigation into his devices and communications ultimately led them to Hopper, who was first interviewed in March 2023, and also <\/strong>a web of others in positions of authority in British society who derived sexual gratification from mutilation. Three days before Hopper\u2019s court hearing, former vicar Geoffrey Baulcomb was sentenced to three years in prison for GBH after maiming another man\u2019s genitals on camera. Michael, the man who first reported Gustavson, is convinced there are going to be more arrests. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be more people discovered through this,\u201d he says. \u201cAre we going to have a police officer next? A\u00a0lawyer? A politician?\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t Hopper\u2019s fetish that led to his downfall \u2013 it was his lies. Before submitting fraudulent health insurance claims to Aviva and Old Mutual Wealth (now Quilter), Hopper had consulted friends and family \u2013 people who had no idea his injuries were self-inflicted \u2013 about whether he should make the applications. \u201cI sort of feel like I should milk this for as much as possible,\u201d he texted a friend. In a message to his father, he wrote, \u201cIf it\u2019s hundreds of thousands, I\u2019ll cash it in. If it\u2019s tens of thousands, I\u2019ll leave it.\u201d His total insurance payout was \u00a3466,653.81. He also claimed around \u00a344,000 in disability benefits.<\/p>\n The insurance claims had both been paid by July 2019; the same month, Hopper commissioned an architect to design an extension to his home. He spent \u00a315,000 on a\u00a0hot tub, \u00a33,000 on audio equipment and \u00a322,000 on a luxury camping trailer. He posted pictures of his new kitchen and hot tub on Instagram, then a\u00a0month later he posted a picture of the family Christmas tree with the comment \u201cLife ain\u2019t bad!\u201d. By November 2022, all the insurance money had been spent.<\/p>\n During Hopper\u2019s trial, the prosecution accepted that Hopper had neither taken out health insurance with the intention of making fraudulent claims nor frozen his feet in order to enrich himself; he had made the claims because not<\/em> claiming might look suspicious. His motivation for harming himself, they argued, was sexual, not financial.<\/p>\n Hopper\u2019s defence team presented a different explanation. His defence barrister told the court that Hopper had suffered from lifelong gender dysphoria, as well as body dysmorphia, which manifested in a\u00a0loathing for his feet. \u201cThey felt like an unwelcome extra.\u201d He had tried to fill his life with family and work, but could not quiet the \u201cconstant noise\u201d and \u201cpersisting, never-ending discomfort\u201d caused by the idea of his feet. (Gustavson\u2019s legal team had made similar arguments at Gustavson\u2019s trial: that he had body integrity disorder and had simply been offering a service to others like him.) But the sexual content, both in the videos Hopper watched and in the communication he sent Gustavson while he was harming himself, are undeniable. Hopper was aroused by what he saw, and what he did.<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid remembers waking up during surgery and being roughly pushed back down on to the operating table <\/p>\n \u201cHe does not regret the facts of the amputations \u2013 he had wanted it for 20 years \u2013 but he regrets the dishonesty and falsehood,\u201d his barrister continued. Appealing to the judge before sentencing, the barrister informed the court that Hopper\u2019s wife had left him. He asked for a suspended sentence, noting that Hopper would be forever recognisable, but would no longer garner any public sympathy. He read out a statement from Hopper: \u201cMy thoughts and behaviours have not had any effect on my job,\u201d it read. \u201cI worked very hard and always tried my best for my patients.\u201d<\/p>\n After Hopper received his sentence \u2013 32 months in prison plus a 10-year sexual harm prevention order \u2013 the Royal Cornwall hospitals trust said their investigations had revealed \u201cno evidence whatsoever to indicate any risk\u201d to Hopper\u2019s patients. But when Hopper\u2019s fitness to practise was assessed at a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing in May this year, which looked at whether Hopper should be allowed to continue as a doctor, the tribunal found \u201can extremely high level of seriousness and risk in this case, and that Dr Hopper has not demonstrated any meaningful insight or remediation into the impact of his behaviour on public protection\u201d. Recommending that he be struck off the medical register, Robert Dudley, on behalf of the GMC, said: \u201cThe doctor\u2019s professional life cannot be separated from his personal behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n The tribunal took place virtually, over Microsoft Teams, with Hopper representing himself. He rang in from prison, his place in the hearing marked by a redacted phone number on a grey rectangle. When he gave his final statement, his voice was thin, reedy and full of self-pity.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m finding this rather difficult,\u201d he began. \u201cI am currently in prison for these crimes, and I have never denied responsibility or guilt for them.\u201d (He did, however, say \u201cNo comment\u201d in his police interviews; he could have done considerably more to help ensure that justice was done.) \u201cI attended this tribunal in order to prove that I understood the seriousness of the allegations and to face them. I had the opportunity to hide away, but, regardless of what people might think of me, I have principles.\u201d He said he was \u201ca person of deep reflection and conscience\u201d and that it had \u201ctaken me ages to come to terms with what I\u2019ve done\u201d. Not once did he mention his former patients, or the profound distress he might have caused them. He was struck off on 29 May.<\/p>\n \u2018N<\/span>ot a surprise,\u201d says Mike Bird, partner and specialist in medical claims at Enable Law, when I speak to him a few days after the tribunal gave its verdict. \u201cWhat worries me is that there\u2019s a huge discrepancy between the perception of how serious this was by the trust where he worked, on the one hand, and the regulator of the profession, on the other. The trust concluded there was no risk to the public \u2013 and they said that after<\/em> he\u2019d been convicted \u2013 whereas the MPTS and the GMC said there were extremely high levels of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Bird says his firm has had about 20 serious inquiries from Hopper\u2019s former patients. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a\u00a0long line of people saying, \u2018I\u2019ve had my limb amputated and I believe it was inappropriately done,\u2019\u201d he tells me; a significant proportion of amputees are elderly, and many of Hopper\u2019s former patients may have already died. \u201cOf those who\u2019ve contacted us, some have felt a\u00a0sense of betrayal or even a feeling of assault because of what they now think was going on in his mind when he was treating them. They are questioning whether the decisions he made about their treatment were appropriate, whether they were motivated by his own sexual gratification rather than clinical need.\u201d It\u2019s much harder to claim damages for psychological trauma compared with physical injuries. \u201cThe law doesn\u2019t always follow reality,\u201d Bird says.<\/p>\n In response to a freedom of information request, the Royal Cornwall hospitals trust has released the report it commissioned on Hopper\u2019s caseload, an investigation the trust described in the statement it gave to the press on the day of Hopper\u2019s conviction <\/strong>as \u201cexhaustive\u201d, \u201ccomprehensive\u201d and conducted by \u201can independent clinical expert\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s done by someone who\u2019s not an expert in the field, someone who is not independent of the trust. He\u2019s not talked to other colleagues, other staff or any patients: he\u2019s looked at the medical records of 30 patients,\u201d Bird says. The focus was on procedures that took place between 1 August 2018 and 31 October 2020, years before Faye\u2019s mother, Liz, had her surgery.<\/p>\n <\/span>Mike Bird, the lawyer representing Hopper\u2019s patients.<\/span> Photograph: Max Searl\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very brief, very superficial reactive response to a crisis situation \u2013 and it\u2019s not enough,\u201d Bird continues. \u201cWhen I\u2019ve spoken to patients who subsequently contacted us, they have said, \u2018Is this not the trust marking its own homework?\u2019 Where\u2019s the independence? Where\u2019s the rigour? When something like this happens, why did the trust not immediately go to NHS England or the Royal College of Surgeons and say, \u2018Please help us work out what\u2019s happened\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur priority from the beginning has been to investigate Mr Hopper\u2019s actions so that we can reassure patients there is no evidence of risk or harm to them,\u201d a\u00a0spokesperson for the Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust said in response to this article. \u201cRCHT carried out\u00a0clinical reviews of all amputation surgery carried\u00a0out by Mr Hopper at our hospitals over a\u00a0two\u2011year period specified by police investigators. These formed part of the police investigation process. Our investigations found no evidence to indicate any risk or harm to patients.\u201d<\/p>\n The RCHT added that complex vascular surgery is always managed by a team of healthcare professionals, and is never the decision of one surgeon. \u201cWe have received reassurance on vascular surgical outcomes between 2013 and 2023 from the National Vascular Registry, who analysed our data for that period, and said further analysis would not add value to this case.\u201d<\/p>\n D<\/span>avid Parker was one of the first patients Hopper operated on after he came back to work on prosthetic legs. He was clearly still getting used to them: David says when they first met for his consultation, Hopper \u201cfell in the doorway and fell into his chair\u201d. But it was winter, and Hopper was wearing long trousers instead of shorts, so David had no idea his surgeon was an amputee. He only realised a year or so later, when he saw a documentary on regional television. \u201cIt was saying what a hero he was, still doing his job after having his legs removed.\u201d<\/p>\n By that time, David didn\u2019t consider Hopper to be a hero. He\u2019d had a procedure to unblock an artery in his neck; Hopper had assured him it would be straightforward and shouldn\u2019t take more than one or two hours, but it ended up taking an entire day. David remembers waking up during surgery and being roughly pushed back down on to the operating table. Ever since he came out of theatre six years ago, he has suffered debilitating nerve pain. He has spent all his retirement savings on private physiotherapy, to little avail.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Something happened in the surgery that day, which I\u2019m still living with\u2019: David Parker, one of Hopper\u2019s patients.<\/span> Photograph: Max Searl\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>The day after the surgery, Mr Hopper came and sat on the side of my bed. The first thing he said to me was, \u2018Do you remember anything from yesterday?\u2019 And I\u00a0said, \u2018Well, I remember waking up.\u2019 He said, \u2018No, no, that didn\u2019t happen. That\u2019s probably just the anaesthetic playing tricks on your mind.\u2019 I never saw him again.\u201d<\/p>\n David says he has since had it confirmed by other staff present during the procedure at the Royal Cornwall hospital that he did<\/em> wake up during surgery. He has been trying to work out how he came to be injured ever since, with years of emails and follow up meetings. Once the news of Hopper\u2019s conviction broke, David says, \u201cMy\u00a0case made a lot more sense. Something happened in the surgery that day, which I\u2019m still living with.\u201d The nerve damage could have occurred during the procedure on his vein or when he was pushed down on to the operating table. David accepts he may never be able to find out.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t believe the trust\u2019s assertion that Hopper never posed any risk to patients. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine a man with so many psychological problems being able to do a surgery and put all his personal life to one side. It just wouldn\u2019t happen, would it?\u201d He sighs.<\/p>\n \u201cProfessionals can talk about his professional life \u2013 I\u2019ll talk about his private life,\u201d Michael says when I put this to him. \u201cAt the time that I was on that website, it\u00a0was constantly there in my mind. It colours everything. It takes years to get it out of your system. If you\u2019re looking at that sort of stuff, and it\u2019s the same stuff you\u2019re doing at work day-to-day \u2013 I\u2019d find it very difficult to compartmentalise. I don\u2019t think it\u2019d be possible.\u201d<\/p>\n It is the never knowing \u2013 the lifelong, gnawing doubt \u2013 that is the source of ongoing trauma for Hopper\u2019s former\u00a0patients and their families. They know one thing for sure: they had a doctor who was consistently, and\u00a0criminally, dishonest.<\/p>\n double quotation markI just refuse to believe that there weren\u2019t ulterior motives behind the operations he carried out<\/p>\n The name of the surgeon who operated on Faye\u2019s mother was not revealed in the inquest into her death. Even though she had a consultation with him after Liz\u2019s operation, Faye had never been certain that Hopper had performed the amputation. When she recently contacted the Royal Cornwall hospital for confirmation, she was told that, despite her vivid memories of her consultation with him, there was \u201c\u2026 no record of Mr\u00a0Hopper being involved at any stage\u201d in Liz\u2019s care.<\/p>\n In response to inquiries from the Guardian, the Royal Cornwall hospitals NHS trust says Liz\u2019s medical records show that Hopper was not in theatre for the amputation of her leg, and that procedure only took three and a half hours, not the 11 or 12 that Faye claims it did.<\/p>\n Faye has text messages she sent to family members during her mum\u2019s surgery informing them that the procedure was taking far longer than the five hours they had originally anticipated. She says she clearly remembers repeatedly ringing the hospital during the surgery to ask why her mother still hadn\u2019t come out\u00a0of\u00a0it, and being told by staff that her mother\u2019s delirious state was due to her having such a\u00a0lengthy procedure.<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t seem to be getting anything back from the hospital that\u2019s correct,\u201d Faye sighs. \u201cThings happened that I know for a fact happened. I know I\u00a0met Neil Hopper. I know he was involved in my mum\u2019s care. I\u00a0don\u2019t know whether he\u2019s just lied and covered his tracks, and therefore the hospital is going by what they\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe may well have been involved \u2013 he just may not have made notes,\u201d says Bird. \u201cHe lied to his medical professional colleagues. The medical records he did make \u2013 why would they be right? They were written by a proven liar.\u201d It\u2019s another reason, Bird says, that any review into Hopper\u2019s work that\u2019s based on medical notes alone is inadequate.<\/p>\n Hopper was told he must serve at least 40% of his sentence, so he will be eligible for release from prison within the next few months. The criminal trial focused only on the charges he could be prosecuted with \u2013 fraud and possession of extreme pornography \u2013 and not the deception of colleagues, patients, and his wife and children, nor the psychological harm he has caused to the people who put their lives and bodies in his hands. While these things are profoundly wrong, they are not necessarily crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cHe hasn\u2019t been punished for what he\u2019s done to patients,\u201d says Faye. \u201cI just refuse to believe that there weren\u2019t ulterior motives behind the operations he carried out.\u201d The ongoing doubts have made it harder for her to grieve, she says. She wants to have her mother\u2019s pictures on the walls, but can\u2019t face the prospect of going through Liz\u2019s old photographs, which remain in a box in Faye\u2019s loft.<\/p>\n Faye wants the trust to commission an independent inquiry into Hopper, investigating not only whether amputations he performed were needlessly done, but also his conduct during his operations \u2013 whether his procedures were prolonged, drawn out or otherwise inappropriately carried out. \u201cIt\u2019s horrific that there hasn\u2019t been an independent audit from NHS England or the Royal College of Surgeons. Why hasn\u2019t there been a full independent inquiry?\u201d<\/p>\n When we first met, Faye had been in two minds about whether or not to speak out about what happened to her mother. She had feared that, if Liz\u2019s wider family and many friends read about her connection to Hopper, they would be horrified. \u201cI don\u2019t want them to go through what I\u2019ve been through,\u201d she\u2019d said. But then she thought about what Liz would want. \u201cShe cared about fairness and justice, and making sure people faced up to things. If she were alive today, I know what she would say. She\u2019d say, \u2018Go get that effing bastard.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of all the things that happened in the fraught days after 72-year-old Liz Spooner had her leg amputated at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro in 2022, one memory remains vivid in the mind of her daughter, Faye Harrison. Liz\u2019s surgery had taken much longer than anticipated, Faye remembers, and, delirious after the anaesthetic and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[25109,2173,1316,3735,25110,5914,13477,1476,9039,629,2292,9857,1168],"class_list":{"0":"post-51571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-amputation","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-due","11":"tag-felt","12":"tag-fetish","13":"tag-legs","14":"tag-mum","15":"tag-patients","16":"tag-removed","17":"tag-safe","18":"tag-sick","19":"tag-surgeon","20":"tag-top"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}