Enable Law partner Mike Bird has been interviewed by leading journalist Jenny Kleeman who has turned the spotlight on disgraced surgeon Neil Hopper’s activities in an in-depth article for the Guardian newspaper.
He revealed Hopper’s former patients are still asking questions about their own medical treatment and feel their local NHS trust has been “marking its own homework” and should commission an independent review.
He was interviewed after Hopper was struck off the medical register when his fitness to practise was assessed at a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing in May.
The clinical negligence specialist has been helping people seek answers after Hopper was jailed in September 2025 for insurance fraud and possessing extreme pornography.
As reported Neil Hopper carried out hundreds of amputation operations before having his own legs removed in 2019.
Truro Crown Court heard Hopper lied to insurers by claiming injuries to his legs were the result of sepsis and not self-inflicted and was sent to prison for two years and eight months.
A Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) spokesperson had said in the wake of last year’s court case that the convictions did not relate to Mr Hopper’s “professional conduct” at its hospitals.
But recommending to the subsequent tribunal that Hopper be struck off, the Guardian reported, Robert Dudley, on behalf of the General Medical Council, said Hopper’s “professional life cannot be separated from his personal behaviours.”
Mike Birdsaid the firm had received about 20 serious inquiries from Hopper’s former patients.
“What worries me,” he told the Guardian, “is that there’s 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 – and they said that after he’d been convicted – whereas the MPTS and the GMC said there were extremely high levels of risk.
“There hasn’t been a long line of people saying, ‘I’ve had my limb amputated and I believe it was inappropriately done.
“Of those who’ve contacted us, some have felt a sense 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 decisions he made about their treatment were appropriate, whether they were motivated by his own sexual gratification rather than clinical need.”
The Guardian article, which had one million reads on the first day of publication alone, said that in response to a freedom of information request, the RCHT had released the report it commissioned on Hopper’s caseload, an investigation the trust described in the statement it gave to the press on the day of Hopper’s conviction as “exhaustive”, “comprehensive” and conducted by “an independent clinical expert”.
“It’s one by someone who’s not an expert in the field, someone who is not independent of the trust,” Mike Bird commented. “He’s not talked to other colleagues, other staff or any patients: he’s looked at the medical records of 30 patients.”
The focus was on procedures that took place between 1 August 2018 and 31 October 2020, years before Faye Harrison’s mother, Liz, had her surgery.
“It’s a very brief, very superficial reactive response to a crisis situation – and it’s not enough,” he continued.
“When I’ve spoken to patients who subsequently contacted us, they have said, ‘Is this not the trust marking its own homework?’ Where’s the independence? Where’s 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, ‘Please help us work out what’s happened’?”
The Guardian reported that Hopper, who was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order by the court, was told he must serve at least 40 per cent of his sentence, so he will be eligible for release from prison within the next few months.
Hopper had been employed by the RCHT from 2013 until he was arrested in March 2023.
After the court case, the trust said it had carried out “comprehensive clinical reviews of surgery” by Hopper, “including engaging an experienced independent clinical expert to review decisions to operate.
“We want to reassure the public our exhaustive investigations have found no evidence whatsoever to indicate any risk or harm to patients at our hospitals,” a statement said.
