HUMZA Yousaf left the stage during his speech to the SNP independence convention after a victim of a disgraced surgeon who heckled him and demanded an inquiry.

The SNP leader walked half-way down the hall to speak to Theresa Mallett after she began shouting about her experience and party members booed her.

Ms Mallett, 61, from Glenrothes, was left with life-changing injuries after undergoing botched surgery for sciatica from ex-NHS Tayside doctor Professor Sam Eljamel.

The neurosurgeon is thought to have harmed hundreds of patients while working at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and is now working in Libya

Mr Yousaf attempted to console Ms Mallett, a party member for 30 years who has now quit, before she left the hall and the FM returned to the stage.

The grandmother told him only a full public inquiry would restore her faith in the party.

Afterwards, Ms Mallett told the PA news agency: “The day after the operation Eljamel told me it was a complete success.

“Two years later the pain clinic told me that I was never getting better – it’s permanent.

“I thought I was going back to work, I thought I was going to get on with my life.”

Ms Mallett said she underwent the surgery to remove a nerve which was causing her sciatic pain in December 2012, but has been given no insight into what went wrong.

She said: “We want people from NHS Tayside, Ninewells, the managers and anybody that colluded to allow him to continue harming patients.

“I’m a member of [the SNP] and I thought I need to go speak to him [the First Minister], I need to go look him in the eye.

“I don’t want anybody to ever go through what I went through or the other 112 went through. That can never be allowed to happen.

“Eljamel is gone, we will never get him back – but we still need answers. Notes have been lost, x-rays have been lost. We have never had answers.”

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She said her time in the SNP was “over for the time being”, adding: “If I get a public inquiry I’ll reconsider. I can’t look people in the face, my own First Minister of the party that I love.”

Following the interruption, Mr Yousaf appealed to SNP members to not “shout down” those who are trying to be heard.

After his speech, Mr Yousaf said he was happy to meet Ms Mallett and other victims.

He said: “There’s no doubt that she’s suffered a lot of trauma, all the victims of Eljamel have, and I’m happy to meet with her in particular.

“She had a particular concern that we haven’t agreed to a public inquiry – I can understand the calls for a public inquiry I have to say.

“We’ve not progressed the public inquiry because we think there may be ways of getting answers to the questions that people want through means that are quicker.

“We know how long a public inquiry often takes but look, everybody who has suffered at the hands of Eljamel has every right to be angry at the situation they find themselves in.”