‘I felt sick that he was near my mum’: a top amputation surgeon had his own legs removed due to a fetish. Were his patients safe?

Neil Hopper was celebrated for continuing to do his job despite the loss of his lower limbs. But what the people he was treating didn’t know was that his injuries were self-inflicted. Now they and their families are asking questions Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation that some readers may find upsetting 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, o...

By Jenny Kleeman