Woman who had her liver branded by surgeon Simon Bramhall with his initials tells of horror as he walks free from court
The specialist, 53, claimed it was a 'naive and foolhardy' attempt to relieve tension in the operating theatre at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham
A WOMAN who had her liver branded with the initials of her surgeon has revealed she feels like a "victim of rape" as he walked free from court.
Top surgeon Simon Bramhall, 53, was sentenced to a 12-month community order and fined £10,000 at Birmingham Crown Court after he admitted two counts of assault by beating.
Bramhall resigned from his job at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital after another surgeon found "SB" branded on a failed donor liver in 2014.
He claimed it was a "naive and foolhardy" attempt to relieve tension in the operating theatre, a court heard.
But as the surgeon today walked free from court, a woman who had been operated on by him in August 2013 revealed the "full horror" of being one of his victims.
In a victim impact statement, the woman said she had at first thought the report was "too farcical" to have happened, before realising she had been one of Bramhall's patients.
She said: "The full horror hit me when a medical professional at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital informed me that it was in fact me.
"It was what I would imagine the feeling is for someone who is a victim of rape.
"I was meant to be undergoing a life saving operation. What was Simon Bramhall thinking of? Why did he think that it was appropriate to do this to me?"
She said her trust in doctors had been destroyed, adding: "My lack of trust in the doctors made me question what could have gone wrong with my new liver.
"I will forever believe in my mind that his branding caused or contributed to the failure of the transplanted liver."
The woman, who said she didn't even like the ideas of tattoos on skin, told the court: "The horror of seeing the photo of my cut open body with the initials SB on the liver will forever live in my mind.
"I personally hate the thought of tattoos anyway, and the thought of someone doing this to me while I was unconscious is abhorrent."
Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC had earlier told the court that one of the two victims initialled by the world-renowned surgeon had been left feeling "violated" and suffered ongoing psychological harm.
Mr Badenoch told the court that Bramhall used an argon beam machine to "write" his initials on the organs of two anaesthetised patients at the end of transplant operations in February and August 2013.
Mr Badenoch said: "This case is about his practice on two occasions, without the consent of the patient and for no clinical reason whatever, to burn his initials on to the surface of a newly-transplanted liver."
One of the victims, referred to in court as Patient A, received a donor organ in 2013 in a life-saving operation carried out by Bramhall.
But the donor liver failed around a week later - for reasons unconnected to its implantation - and another surgeon spotted Bramhall's initials on the organ.
A photograph of the 4cm-high branding was taken on a mobile phone and Bramhall, who now works for the NHS in Herefordshire, later admitted using the argon beam coagulator to mark Patient A's liver.
Mr Badenoch said of the initial transplant operation: "Mr Bramhall had to work exceptionally hard and use all of his skill to complete the operation.
"At the end of the operation he performed a liver biopsy using the argon beam coagulator, and then used it to burn his initials."
A nurse who saw the initialling queried what had happened and Bramhall was said to have replied: "I do this."
The court heard that Bramhall later told police he had "flicked his wrist" and made the mark within a few seconds.
"He knew that the action could cause no harm to the patient. He also said that in hindsight this was naive and foolhardy - a misjudged attempt to relieve the tension in theatre," Mr Badenoch said.
Last month Bramhall pleaded guilty to assaulting a patient whose name is protected by a court order during an operation in August 2013.
He also entered a guilty plea relating to an operation performed on an unknown patient in February of the same year.
The surgeon pleaded not guilty to alternative charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Bramhall worked at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for 12 years before he quit.
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