A PATIENT was left with a “rotting” wound after an unnecessary mastectomy carried out by Scots surgeon Ian Paterson after he told her she had was suffering from a rare breast condition, a court heard.

Judith Conduit told jurors she was rushed to another hospital after a blood clot was discovered close to her heart during the procedure in July 2001 – and another surgeon did not have the correct implements to remove it.

She said the wound on her left breast was “black and rotting” following the operation and she went to the hospital 94 times in the following 12 months as part of her recovery.

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Glasgow-born Mr Paterson is alleged to have told her she had Dercum’s disease – a condition the surgeon had only seen twice before – after several procedures had been carried out to remove lumps.

Mrs Conduit said: “He (Paterson) said he could not keep removing the lumps because he was removing too much breast tissue and the only way forward would be to have a bilateral mastectomy.”

Mr Paterson denies 20 counts of wounding with intent against nine women and one man relating to procedures he carried out between 1997 and 2011.

Jurors have previously heard claims he carried out completely unnecessary operations for “obscure motives” that may have included a desire to “earn extra money”.

Mrs Conduit, then aged 47, had seen Mr Paterson in May and September 2000 when he removed lumps from her right and left breasts, which turned out to be benign fatty tissue, the court heard.

She told the jury, which has been reduced to six men and five women, at Nottingham Crown Court: “I think it was at the normal six-week check-up. On that visit there were more lumps that had appeared in my breast and it was on that occasion Mr Paterson suggested I might have Dercum’s, which he explained to me was a very, very rare condition.

“(He said) in all his years as a surgeon, I was the third person he had diagnosed with it. He told me there was no known cause and no known cure, and that the other two ladies who he had diagnosed with it had had mastectomies.”

Mrs Conduit later went into hospital for tests on the lumps and stayed overnight, with Mr  Paterson returning in the morning saying the tests had confirmed Dercum’s.

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Of the lumps, she said: “They were uncomfortable but they were not driving me up the wall with pain.”

Mr Paterson, of Castle Mill Lane, Ashley, Altrincham, Greater Manchester, who was formerly employed by Heart of England NHS Trust and also worked at Spire Healthcare, denies 20 counts of wounding with intent.

The trial continues.