Surgeon struck off after being jailed for fraud related to amputation

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By Daniel Pye

A consultant vascular surgeon jailed for fraud after his legs were amputated due to self-inflicted injuries has been struck off the medical register.

Mr Neil Hopper received a 32-month prison sentence last year after admitting to defrauding two insurance companies out of £466,000 by telling them his limbs had been amputated due to illness rather than damage he caused with dry ice and ice.

Hopper, who worked at Treliske Hospital, Truro, also admitted three counts of possessing extreme pornographic images depicting genital mutilation.

These videos came from an extreme body modification website, run by Marius Gustavson.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found his convictions were incompatible with continued registration, and no other sanction would adequately hold public confidence in the profession.

He posed “an extremely high risk” to public protection, the panel declared.

Hopper’s charges followed a police investigation into Gustavson and the website.

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