Ian Paterson: Inquests open into deaths of surgeon's victims

Inquests into the deaths of four women treated by rogue breast surgeon Ian Paterson have been opened.

Senior coroner for Birmingham and Solihull Louise Hunt said further inquests into other victims of the convicted surgeon were "likely".

Paterson, 62, was jailed in 2017 for 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding.

Ms Hunt said the inquests would examine failings in the care provided by Paterson, his colleagues and bosses.

Ms Hunt and area coroner Emma Brown opened the remote hearing from Birmingham Coroner's Court for Deborah Hynes, Marie Pinfield, Yvonne Cordon and Shionagh Gough.

The process was likely to take "many months", Ms Hunt said, as it would look at the broader context surrounding each woman's death.

Mrs Hynes, from Sutton Coldfield, died in 2013 at the age of 51. At the time, her death was recorded as being due to metastatic breast cancer.

Ms Pinfield, a police officer from Solihull, died in 2008 when she was 50.

Mrs Gough, a 76-year-old former purser from Henley-in-Arden, died at a nursing home in 2006; and Mrs Corden, a 39-year-old cleaner from Birmingham, died at a hospice in 2000.

West Midlands Police asked the coroner to examine a sample of 23 deaths of former patients of Paterson in January.

An inquiry found Paterson, from Altrincham, Greater Manchester, had carried out unnecessary operations for years amid a "dysfunctional" healthcare system that failed patients. Some 750 of them received compensation payouts.

He was initially jailed for 15 years, before the Court of Appeal increased his sentence to a 20-year term.

Ms Hunt said the inquests would examine whether there were "systemic failings" by the surgeon's bosses at Little Aston and Parkway Hospitals in the West Midlands, run by Spire Healthcare, in responding to concerns about him.

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]