Acclaimed breast surgeon with 'God complex' harmed patients with unnecessary operations

Pic:Ian Paterson has been convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding

Health reporter(wp/es):

A breast surgeon who carried out numerous "completely unnecessary" operations on female patients – possibly for financial gain – has been convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent.

Acclaimed surgeon Ian Paterson, who was also convicted of three counts of unlawful wounding, sobbed as he was found guilty.

He was described as having a “God complex” and the court heard how he lied to patients and exaggerated - or invented - the risk of cancer to convince them to go under the knife.

The 59-year-old did so for "obscure motives" which may have included a desire to "earn extra money", his trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The Scottish-born surgeon had maintained that all the operations were necessary – but the jury agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out "extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason".

And figures revealed the NHS has paid out nearly £18 million, of which £9.5 million was damages, following claims from nearly 800 patients of Paterson.

Paterson's seven-week trial heard harrowing testimony from 10 patients treated between 1997 and 2011, with one victim telling jurors: "That person has ruined my life."

The victims told the court they believed they were seriously ill after seeing Paterson, with one patient saying she was described as a "cancer ticking bomb" and another convinced she had cancer - rather than merely being at risk of developing it.

Others who suffered at his hands included Leanne Joseph, who is said to have agreed to two "unnecessary operations", leaving her unable to breastfeed, after he told her it was a "small price to pay for her life".

The mother - aged 25 when she had the operations in 2006 - was left paranoid and developed OCD after later giving birth, fearing for the immune system of her daughter who is now eight years old.

Another victim, Joanne Lowson, was left with a "significant deformity in her visible cleavage area" after a pair of unneeded operations on her left breast by Paterson in 2010. 

Detective Sergeant Dale Robertson said: "They (the victims) have been traumatised, they have been subjected to a very uncomfortable experience.” 

He said that Paterson's motives "remained obscure", adding: "We have considered elements, obviously financial being one.

“We can speculate with regards to hubris, over-confidence in his own status as a top breast surgeon, excessive pride in his work, playing God with people's lives, enjoying being able to tell someone he has saved their life.”

Judge Jeremy Baker released Paterson on conditional bail ahead of sentencing in May. The maximum sentence for wounding with intent is life.

Man left fighting for life after being stabbed with screwdriver in ‘vicious and shocking’ attack

Crime reporter(wp/es):

A man was left fighting for life after he was stabbed during a “vicious” mugging in front of horrified parents and children in a busy park.

The 31-year-old victim was attacked with what is believed to be a screwdriver in Dulwich Park, south London, just after 1pm on Thursday.

The Italian national, who lives in south east London, had been sitting on a patch of grass with a fellow dog walker when the man on the bicycle demanded his phone then stabbed him.

The friend who was with him, who had her handbag stolen by the thief, told the Weastar Times: “It was a vicious and shocking attack… now my friend is in intensive care and we are praying he will be ok.”

“Me and my friend were just sitting on the lawn with our dogs who were playing by us,” she said. “I noticed a guy on his bike crossing the grass.

“He returned within a few seconds, got off his bike and raised a sharp objected and said to my friend ‘give me your phone’.

“My friend just said ‘what?’ then he stabbed him in the head. There was no time for him to even get out his phone and give it to him.

“The guy shouted at me ‘you don’t move’ and I raised my handbag towards him as if to say ‘just take my bag’.

“Then the guy stabbed my friend again, this time in the left side, took my bag and rode off.”

The freelance writer described how she used her scarf to stem blood coming from her friend’s head, before other members of the public came over and helped him before emergency services arrived.

An air ambulance landed near a packed children’s playground less than 100 yards away and the man was rushed to King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill where he remained in a critical condition today.

Parents said top private schools in the area including Alleyn’s and Dulwich College sent a message warning them not to allow their children to go to the park because of the incident.

The man was seen cycling out of the park at Court Lane. Police believe he attempted to use the woman’s contactless payment card in a nearby shop.

Gerry Fletcher, who was in the park with a friend, said: “It’s just horrific. It’s such a lovely, peaceful park and the playground would have packed with children. We just hope the man is going to be ok.”

A parks worker told the Standard: “We were told by police to look out for any screwdrivers that might be in bins. Police are checking all the bins this morning. It’s a shocking thing to have happened.”

The victim appealed for any witnesses to anyone who knows anything to come forward.

“It was over a phone, my bag, which had just £50 inside" she said. “And now my friend is fighting for his life."

There have been no arrests. The stabbing is being investigated by Southwark Police.

A Met Police spokesman said: “The man was taken to a south London hospital where his condition is described as critical. His next of kin have been informed.

“It is believed the stabbing may have followed the robbery of a woman by a third party a short distance away.”

Facebook and Google were conned out of $100m in phishing scheme

Pic:google&facebook
ICT reporter(wp):

Google and Facebook were phished for over $100m, it has been reported, proving not even the biggest technology companies in the world are immune from the increasingly sophisticated attacks of online scammers.

Last month it was reported that two major tech companies were tricked by a Lithuanian man into sending him over $100m (£77m). Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, was charged with wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft for impersonating Quanta Computer – a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that includes Google, Facebook and Apple as clients.

Now an investigation by Fortune has shown that the two firms Rimasauskas reportedly sent fraudulent invoices to were Facebook and Google, who both paid out over $100m.

Facebook said in a statement: “We recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation.” Likewise Google said it had “detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”

The case shows just how big an issue phishing and online fraud has become, with phishing attacks conning people and companies all over the world out of significant sums of money.

Where the age old Nigerian Prince scams still operate with bogus claims of money, techniques used by the thieves have become increasingly sophisticated. The National Audit Office warned in December that the UK was ill prepared for online fraud and that it cost UK consumers at least £14.8bn last year, of which £4.2bn is thought to be hidden and unreported losses from crime such as mass marketing fraud and counterfeit goods.

In January, accountants KPMG recorded the value of fraud committed in the UK last year reported to the court system to have exceeded £1.1bn – a 55% year-on-year rise highlighting a dramatic rise in cybercrime.

From costly conveyancing scams to fake IT support, it’s more important than ever to double-check anything asking for personal details or money. But when not even Facebook and Google, who make technology that is meant to help protect against online scammers, get tricked, it paints a grim picture for your average user.

UK GDP growth slower than expected as inflation bites

Business reporter(wp):

The UK economy suffered a sharp slowdown in the opening months of this year, as the post-referendum rise in living costs took its toll on British households and hit consumer spending.

GDP growth fell more than expected to 0.3% in the first quarter from 0.7% in the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics said.

The official figures add to signs that the UK economy’s resilience in the wake of the Brexit vote is now waning and will come as a blow to Theresa May’s government as it banks on a solid victory in the snap election on 8 June. 

Many economists expect the slowdown to continue as higher inflation dents consumer spending, a key driver for the UK economy. But the deterioration is still far off the Brexit-related slump some commentators had predicted.

“The first quarter’s slowdown was led by consumers, whose incomes are under pressure from slowing employment and wage growth as well as rising inflation,” said Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at the consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics.

“One quarter of slow growth is not definitive proof that the economy is on the ropes. But the pressure on consumers’ incomes looks set to build this year as retailers pass on higher import prices.”

The figures suggested consumer-facing sectors such as shops and hotels have been hurt in recent months by the squeeze on Britons’ spending power from the pound’s plunge since the Brexit vote. Sterling’s weakness makes imports to the UK such as food and fuel more expensive. That factor combined with higher crude oil prices has lifted inflation to its highest level for more than three years.

Economists had predicted a more modest slowdown to 0.4% growth, according to a Reuters poll.

The 0.3% growth rate was the slowest for a year. There was also a sharp slowdown in GDP per head, which adjusts for the size of the population and is generally seen as a better guide to prosperity than mere GDP. It edged up just 0.1% in the first quarter after rising 0.5% in the previous quarter.

Statisticians said the biggest drag on growth was the retail sector, echoing other signs shoppers are cutting back. Growth in the services sector, which makes up more than three quarters of the UK economy, slowed markedly to a two-year low of 0.3% from 0.8% in the final quarter of 2016.

A leading thinktank underscored the pressures on household budgets as it noted the weakness in wage growth started long before the Brexit vote. After adjusting for inflation, employees’ average earnings were still substantially below pre-recession levels, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in a new analysis. On current forecasts, earnings would still not have fully recovered by the end of the next parliament.

“A period of this length over which earnings have fallen is unprecedented in modern times. They had started to recover a little between 2014 and 2016, but rising inflation linked to the fall in the value of the pound since the EU referendum has put a stop to that modest recovery,” said IFS senior research economist Jonathan Cribb.

The ONS figures showed industrial production and construction output also slowed in the first quarter. But economists noted that their fortunes could yet improve over coming months. There have been signs that the weak pound has already helped exporters by making their goods and services more competitive overseas.

“The long-awaited slowdown is finally coming but I’d be wary of over-interpreting today’s numbers,” said Ian Stewart, the chief economist at Deloitte.

“Quarterly GDP growth is choppy and prone to revision. Inflation will continue to squeeze the consumer but the outlook for manufacturing and exports has brightened. Growth is slowing, but this looks like a cooling, not collapse, in UK activity.”

Alan Clarke, an economist at Scotiabank, was also cautiously optimistic about the UK’s longer-term prospects.

“The fears leading up to Brexit were that growth would stall due to a dive in confidence, hiring and investment. That hasn’t happened. What did happen is the pound dived, pushing inflation sharply higher and that is causing consumer spending and hence overall growth to slow,” he said.

“The good news is that the surge in inflation is probably temporary and the squeeze on growth should pass. However, it is probably going to take another year before growth is back on an upwards trajectory.”

Economists at Barclays said GDP growth had come in weaker than the Bank of England had expected and strengthened the case for keeping interest rates at their record low of 0.25% this year and next.

NHS needs £25bn in emergency cash, Theresa May told

Staff reporter(wp):

NHS leaders are urging Theresa May to give the health service an emergency cash injection of £25bn before 2020 or risk a decline in the quality of care for patients and lengthening delays for treatment.

An influential group representing NHS trusts says that the care provided by hospitals and GP surgeries will suffer over the next few years unless the prime minister provides an £5bn a year for the next three years – and a further £10bn of capital for modernising equipment and buildings.

NHS Providers is preparing to release its own manifesto next week, calling on the Conservatives and Labour to end what it calls the austerity funding of the health service. Saffron Cordery, the director of policy and strategy , said its analysis showed that there was a “revenue gap” of £4.5bn-£5bn a year in 2017-18 and “each of the subsequent two years as well”.

Hospitals needed that sum, said Cordery, to get rid of their deficits of £800m-£900m a year, fulfil new NHS commitments on cancer and mental health and improve their performance against key waiting time targets.

The NHS also needed a further £10bn for capital spending on building and repairing premises, buying new equipment and modernising how care is provided, she added. That is the sum which a recent report commissioned by the Department of Health said the service needed for those purposes.

May inherited a pledge from David Cameron and George Osborne to provide a £10bn real-terms increase between April 2014 and April 2021. So far in the election campaign, the prime minister has refused to be drawn on how she might fund the health service, telling journalists that they would have to wait for the publication of the party’s manifesto.

A second group, the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and ambulance and mental health services, urged May to commit to giving the NHS £8bn-a-year annual budget increases after 2020-21, when the current funding settlement expires. The DH’s budget is due to reach £133.1bn by March 2021.

Niall Dickson, its chief executive, said NHS services were so stretched that it would have to go back to getting at least the 4%-a-year budget increases it enjoyed historically between its creation in 1948 and 2010. After that, the coalition government limited rises to 1% annually.

“It’s quite unsustainable for the shackles to remain on the health and care system and for society to expect the levels of need that will arrive over the next 10-15 years to be met unless it is willing to fund them,” Dickson said. “If we aren’t ready to put significant extra resources into the NHS then difficult choices will need to be made about things that we are going to do.”

Prof John Appleby, the chief economist of the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said that returning to 4% a year rises “would require a cash increase of around £8bn in 2021-22”.

While Tory backing for such large sums was unlikely, “this could change if the NHS continues to miss its headline performance targets and the concern the public are starting to express about the NHS continues to rise”, he added.

The two interventions put pressure on May on an issue that some polls show is top of voters’ list of priorities in the general election, even ahead of Brexit.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has said several times that the NHS budget will need to rise by a significant amount after the current funding schedule ends in March 2021. For example, last October he told the Commons health select committee: “It is a given that over coming decades we will need to put more into the health and social care system … if we want a high quality healthcare service, yes, we need to continue investing more.”

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has voiced concern that per capita health funding will decline in 2018-19 and 2019-20. It is due to fall from its current level of £2,223 a head this year by £16 next year and £7 in 2019.

Anita Charlesworth, the director of research at the Health Foundation thinktank, said the NHS could no longer make ends meet by holding down pay and reducing investment in equipment and facilities. “Cracks are evident – access to new drugs is being restricted, waiting times have increased and recruitment and retention are growing problems across the NHS. The health service can always be more efficient but it cannot bridge the gap between pressures rising at 4% and funding at 1% for much longer without quality and access suffering,” she said.

A Conservative spokesman said: “A strong NHS needs a strong economy. Only Theresa May and the Conservatives offer the strong and stable leadership we need to secure our growing economy in future and with it funding for the NHS and its dedicated staff.

“We’ve protected and increased the NHS budget and got thousands more staff in hospitals – but we know that progress is on the ballot paper at this election.”

Tory MP's aide denies parliament rape charges

Political reporter(wp):

A Conservative MP’s aide has denied raping a woman in the Houses of Parliament.

Sam Armstrong, who has been suspended as chief of staff to the South Thanet MP, Craig Mackinlay, pleaded not guilty at Southwark crown court on Friday to four charges including two counts of rape, one count of sexual assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault.

The 23-year-old, from Danbury, Essex, is accused of raping and sexually assaulting the woman in an office in the Norman Shaw North building on the parliamentary estate on 14 October 2016.

Armstrong entered not guilty pleas and spoke to confirm his name. The judge, Deborah Taylor, scheduled the trial for 11 December at the same court.

Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, did not object to Armstrong being released on bail. The accused was released on condition that he did not enter the Palace of Westminster or contact the alleged victim.

Air pollution plan cannot be delayed, high court tells government

Law&Justice reporter(wp):

The government has been ordered to publish tough new plans to tackle air pollution after the high court rejected attempts by ministers to keep the policy under wraps until after the general election.

In the latest defeat for ministers over their continued failure to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, which is believed to be responsible for 40,000 premature deaths a year,, Mr Justice Garnham said the secretary of state, Andrea Leadsom, was in breach of a court order to take action in the shortest possible time and that any further delays would constitute a further breach.

He said it was essential to publish draft plans to cut air pollution immediately to safeguard public health. The judge rejected a government application to appeal, saying that ministers would have to go to the appeal court if they wanted to seek permission to challenge his ruling.

The judgment came after ministers applied to court to keep their plans secret until after the general election, saying it was necessary to “comply with pre-election propriety rules”. The new measures are likely to include the imposition of multiple clean-air zones across the country, where drivers will face fines if their vehicles do not pass roadside emissions tests.

Garnham on Thursday ordered ministers to publish their draft plan within two weeks – on 9 May, after local elections on 4 May – and said the government must comply with his original order and release their final policy on tackling the air crisis by 31 July.

“These steps are necessary in order to safeguard public health,” said the judge. “The continued failure of the government to comply with directives and regulations constitutes a significant threat to public health.”

The judge said the government’s own figures showed that nitrogen dioxide pollution – primarily from diesel traffic – is linked to the premature deaths of 23,500 people a year in the UK. “That is more than 64 deaths each day,” Garnham said.

The court decided that the threat to public health constituted “exceptional circumstances”, which meant purdah guidelines in the runup to a general election could be waived. “Immediate publication [of the policy] is essential,” he said.

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said common sense had prevailed. “The nation’s dirty air is one of the most important public health issues in recent times. The high court’s decision recognises the need to urgently tackle this crisis.”

Last November, ministers were taken to court by the environmental group ClientEarth over their failure to take measures to reduce air pollution, which put them in breach of EU law and domestic regulations.

The judge found for ClientEarth and said the government’s original plans were so poor as to be unlawful. The plans included five clean-air zones where diesel drivers faced charges if their cars did not pass emissions tests. The judge gave ministers until 24 April at 4pm to come up with a new draft policy to tackle air pollution from diesel traffic.

On Thursday the government was called to court by Garnham to explain why it had made a last-minute application late last Friday to delay publication of a draft policy to tackle air pollution until after the general election.

James Eadie QC, representing the government, said the new policy was ready to be published, but that it would be controversial and should therefore be withheld until after the election.

“If you publish a draft plan, it drops all the issues of controversy into the election … like dropping a controversial bomb,” he said, adding that this could risk breaching rules about civil service neutrality and could lead to the policy being labelled a Tory plan.

But Garnham said in his judgment that purdah was not a principle of law and the exceptional circumstances of the threat to public health that meant its rules could be overridden.

“It does not give ministers a defence to the principles of private and public law … It is not binding on the courts. It provides no immediate right for an extension of time to comply with an order of the court. It is not a trump card,” he said.

The judge said the court had in November ordered Leadsom to publish the draft plan to tackle illegal levels of air pollution across the country and that she had still failed to do so.

“In November 2016, I found the secretary of state was in breach of directives and regulations. The secretary of state remains in breach. She is obliged to comply as soon as possible.” Garnham added that any further delay would constitute a further breach.

James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth, welcomed the ruling. He said: “The government has never stopped delaying when it comes to cleaning up our air. I would urge them not to appeal and to get on with it. Enough dithering. The judge was extremely clear.”

Sue Hayman, the shadow environment secretary, said it was the third time the government had lost in court over the issue.

“The government must publish their air quality plan without delay. A Labour government would bring forward a new Clean Air Act setting out how we would tackle air pollution.”

Liberal Democrat Ed Davey, former secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: “This is a dramatic defeat for the Conservative government. Ministers have used taxpayer money to try to hide proof of their environmental failures. And they have even failed there, too.

“With scientists showing the health impact of air pollution being far worse than we thought, it is disgraceful for the Conservatives to try to bury the truth from voters.” 

Jonathan Bartley, Green party co-leader, said the government’s attempt to delay publishing its policy showed “disdain for public health and a complete failure to grasp the extent of the emergency facing the UK”.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was pleased that ministers now had to face up to their responsibilities. “Ministers were dragged kicking and screaming to face the huge scale of this health crisis but rather than take action, they used the election as a smokescreen to hold back their plan.”