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| 'Liver branding' surgeon Simon Bramhall fined £10,000 | 'Liver branding' surgeon Simon Bramhall fined £10,000 |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A liver surgeon who branded his initials on the livers of two patients has been fined £10,000. | A liver surgeon who branded his initials on the livers of two patients has been fined £10,000. |
| Simon Bramhall, 53, used an argon beam machine to write his initials on the organs of the anaesthetised patients in 2013 while working at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. | Simon Bramhall, 53, used an argon beam machine to write his initials on the organs of the anaesthetised patients in 2013 while working at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. |
| Bramhall, of Tarrington, Herefordshire, admitted two counts of assault by beating at Birmingham Crown Court. | Bramhall, of Tarrington, Herefordshire, admitted two counts of assault by beating at Birmingham Crown Court. |
| He was also sentenced to a 12-month community order. | He was also sentenced to a 12-month community order. |
| 'Violated' | |
| One of the victims, referred to in court as Patient A, received a donor organ in a life-saving operation carried out by Bramhall. | |
| But the donor liver failed about a week later - for reasons unconnected to its implantation - and another surgeon spotted Bramhall's initials "SB" branded 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 marking Patient A's liver. | |
| Bramhall, 53, resigned from his job at the hospital in 2014. | |
| The consultant pleaded guilty to two counts of assault by beating in December after prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. | |
| Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC said one of the two victims was left feeling "violated" and suffered ongoing psychological harm. | |
| The court heard the surgeon's actions were a "naive and foolhardy" attempt to relieve tension in the operating theatre during transplant operations in February and August 2013. | |
| 'Professional arrogance' | |
| Acknowledging that Bramhall's actions had not caused either patient's new liver to fail, 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." | |
| A nurse who saw the initialling questioned what had happened and Bramhall was said to have replied: "I do this." | |
| Judge Paul Farrer QC, who said Bramhall would carry out 120 hours of unpaid work, told the defendant: "Both of the operations were long and difficult. | |
| "I accept that on both occasions you were tired and stressed and I accept that this may have affected your judgment. | |
| "This was conduct born of professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behaviour. | |
| "What you did was an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust that these patients had invested in you. | |
| "I accept that you didn't intend or foresee anything but the most trivial of harm would be caused." | |
| Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital said Mr Bramhall had made "a mistake". | |
| "We can reassure his patients that there was no impact whatsoever on the quality of his clinical outcomes." |