Amputee surgeon struck off for posing extreme risk

A convicted NHS vascular surgeon who froze his own legs so they had to be removed has been struck off the medical register.

Neil Hopper, 50, of Truro, Cornwall, was sentenced in September to 32 months in prison and given an 10-year sexual harm prevention order for insurance fraud and possessing extreme pornography.

On Friday, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel decided Hopper’s fitness to practise had been impaired in relation to his convictions and sanctioned him to removal from the medical register.

Tribunal chair Samantha Gray said the panel had determined Hopper posed “an extremely high level of risk to public protection with no demonstrable lack insight or remedial behaviour”.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions

Three of Hopper’s five convictions resulted from him buying three videos featuring the clamping and removal of male genitalia from Marius Gustavson, who was jailed for 22 years in 2024 for offences related to mutilating paying customers and streaming it online.

Robert Dudley, representing the General Medical Council, said the extreme pornography body modification videos Hopper had bought and watched “had been conducted to, and had resulted in, serious injury” to members of the public.

He said: “It is apparent to the tribunal Hopper was sexually motivated by the videos and by his own amputation.”

The consumption of the videos and his association with their maker showed Hopper to have “a blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the public”, he added.

He said Hopper possessed no insight into the sexual motivation which indicated he had limited insight into his own health.

That, combined with the dishonesty evidenced by the fraud convictions, resulted in the GMC viewing Hopper’s conduct as “incompatible” with the medical profession, Dudley concluded.

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Having no representative and speaking by phone from prison, Hopper said: “I attended the tribunal not to change the outcome but to prove I understand the seriousness.

“I felt obliged to face the consequences in person. I do have principles, so I chose to face justice head on.”

He said he was disappointed he had not been able to show sufficient remorse or insight to the panel.

“It’s taken me years to come to terms with what I’ve done,” he said. “I’m a man of deep reflection and conscience.”

Referencing the extreme body modification videos he had bought and watched, he said: “I’m not only ashamed of my actions, I’m appalled I was part of the machinery.

“I cannot convey how sorry I am. It’s behaviour I find impossible to understand. I’m so, so sorry.

“I’ve never tried to excuse my actions, they were inexcusable.

“At the time, I had no understanding of the motivations.”

Since then, he said, he had made progress in his work with psychiatrists and psychologists.

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