Founder of PIP breast implant company is jailed for four years in France after being found guilty of aggravated fraud
- - Jean-Claude Mas hid the true nature of the sub-standard silicone used
- - In France, about a quarter of implants made by PIP ruptured
- - There were cheers as the verdict was read out in a Marseille court today
- - But many women in the UK are continuing to fight for compensation
By DAMIEN GAYLE and PETER ALLEN
|
A French businessman who made millions selling faulty breast implants was today sentenced to four years in jail over the scandal.
A Marseille court from that Jean-Claude Mas, 74, founder and chief-executive of Poly Implant Prothese, had hidden the true nature of the sub-standard silicone used in their production.
They were sold to some 300,000 women around the world until a global panic erupted in 2011 when France recommended patients with them should have them removed due to an abnormally high rupture rate.
Poly Implant Prothese founder Jean-Claude Mas arrives at court in Marseille: He was today jailed for four years for hiding the true nature
of the sub-standard silicone used in his company's breast implants
The vast majority of the implants were for cosmetic reasons. The rest were for breast reconstruction, often following cancer surgery.
In France, about a quarter of the implants malfunctioned, most by rupturing and leaking silicone.
Doctors and scientists who have followed the case say medical complications stemming from the ruptures and leaks appear to be limited even when the implants rupture. Rashes and localised pain were the most common complaints.
But lawyers for the women say the full effects will not be known for years to come.
Mas - who had called the claimants 'money grabbers - was found guilty of aggravated fraud and, in addition to the maximum four-year prison sentence, was ordered to pay a €75,000 fine.
In what was the biggest and most expensive trial in French history, he and four other defendants appeared in the dock in a converted conference centre in Marseille, in the south of France.
Documents relating to the case are seen in the courtroom, left. PIP implants, like the one pictured right, were sold to some 300,000 women around the world until a global panic erupted in 2011 when authorities in France recommended patients with them should have them removed due to an abnormally high rupture rate
There were cheers in court as the verdict was read out, while hundreds of others joined a protest against Mas outside.
Briton Jan Spivey received PIP implants and joined the criminal trial as a civil party with 5,126 other women.
'We want to see some accountability at long last,' she said before the verdict. 'We have high hopes that France will bring justice for British victims.'
Ms Spivey said the evidence that emerged should 'shame and embarrass' the British government.
She said health ministers failed to support British victims in the way their French counterparts were backed by their own authorities.
During the trial: Mas, centre, who was the founder and long-time chief executive of the now-defunct Poly Implant Prothese (PIP),
arriving at court for an earlier hearing with his his lawyer Yves Haddad, left
Many UK women are continuing to fight for compensation after having the implants fitted - many of whom who have had to pay for removals or replacements out of their own pockets.
Richard Langton, a lawyer from Slater & Gordon, which is representing more than 200 British women, said: 'We have hundreds of clients treated by many UK clinics who fitted the now banned implants, but unfortunately many of the clinics do not have insurance and are unable to meet any judgement.
'There will be a trial in October next year against solvent clinics who continue to deny liability.
'Slater & Gordon have devised a negotiated settlement agreement with all the banks to pay compensation to women who used a credit card to pay for the surgery.
'This will be small consolation for women who didn’t use a credit card. We are also actively pursuing a claim against TUV, the German company who were supposed to be monitoring PIP in France and who failed to spot the fraud that was being perpetrated.
'Now that the criminal trial in France is over, we can hopefully pursue a claim in England if at all possible on behalf of women who would otherwise go uncompensated.'
Outraged: In this photo taken in April, women wait in the court room, in a converted conference centre in Marseille, for the opening of
the trial of five executives of PIP accused of selling faulty breast implants
Some of the hundreds of women who registered as plaintiffs are seen arriving at the trial on arrival at the temporary courthouse.
More than 5,000 women who received PIP implants joined the trial as civil parties
PIP was shut down and its products banned in 2010 after it was revealed to have been using industrial-grade silicone gel, which seemed to cause high rupture rates.
Fears spread globally late in 2011 after French health authorities advised 30,000 women to have PIP implants removed.
Mas, who has two £1million properties in the South of France and Luxembourg, was at one stage the third biggest global supplier of breast implants.
According to various government estimates, over 42,000 women in Britain received the implants, more than 30,000 in France, 25,000 in Brazil and 15,000 in Colombia.
Looking relaxed: Mas, former head of PIP, smokes during a court break on the first day of the trial against him
Thousands questioned how the former meat and Cognac salesmen was allowed to cheat health inspectors to make untested implant gel with no concern for women's health.
Christine Michelini, 52, a French witness in the trial, said: 'We were cheated physically, psychologically and morally, I just want him to explain to us why he did it'.
Ms Michelini, from Caen, in Normandy, was fitted with a PIP implant after cancer treatment and was operated on numerous times before finally having the implant removed.
The hearing which ended with a guilty verdict today is the first of potentially three trials involving PIP.
No comments:
Post a Comment