'Eunuch Maker' NHS surgeon admits lying about amputating his legs

A surgeon who claimed on TV he lost his legs to sepsis today admitted causing his own injuries after buying videos from the Eunuch Maker.

NHS vascular surgeon Neil Hopper, 49, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud by false representation relating to claims made to insurance companies that his legs had been amputated due to illness rather than self-inflicted injury.

He also admitted three charges of possessing extreme pornographic images, relating to videos by a website called the Eunuch Maker. Hopper, of St Erme, Truro, Cornwall, appeared before Truro Crown Court today to enter his guilty pleas.

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Charges state that between June 3 and July 20 in 2019, Hopper dishonestly made a false representation to insurers Aviva and Old Mutual Health, that his "legs had been amputated because of illness rather than self-inflicted injury".

During the court hearing today, Judge James Adkin, the honorary recorder of Truro, heard Hopper was identified following investigations into Marius Gustavson who ran the The EunuchMaker website.

Gustavson was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years at the Old Bailey last year for leading an extreme body modification ring, which carried out male castration, penis removal and other procedures on people as young as 16.

The Norwegian national once cooked human testicles to eat in a salad, and also had his own penis removed with a kitchen knife, and froze his own leg so it was amputated. The Old Bailey heard last year that extreme body modification is linked to a subculture where men become "nullos", short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.

Gustavson netted more than £300,000 between 2017 and 2021 after posting videos of various procedures on his Eunuch Maker website. Hopper has not worked at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust since March 2023.

The General Medical Council placed restrictions on his practice the following month, and he has been suspended from the medical register since December 2023. After Hopper was charged with five offences, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust - where Hopper had been employed for a decade - released a statement.

A spokesperson said: "The charges do not relate to Mr Hopper's professional conduct and there has been no evidence to suggest any risk to patients. Mr Hopper worked in at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals from 2013 until he was suspended from duty in March 2023, following his initial arrest."

Speaking about his injuries previously, Hopper claimed he and his daughter fell unwell on a camping trip in 2019. He said his daughter recovered but he was taken to hospital where he was told he had sepsis.

Hopper claimed he would have needed multiple operations and skin grafts to save his legs. He said there was no guarantee the surgeries would work and feared the skin grafts would impact his work.

Hopper said: "I opted not to have hundreds and hundreds of operations but just to have one to sort it out." He also told how he kept focusing on the use of power tools during the amputation, which he found "icky".

The dad, who carried out hundreds of amputation operations on others, was branded the "Bravest surgeon in Britain". He appeared on ITV's This Morning and was given a bravery award in 2020.

Hopper told the BBC in 2023 he recovered quickly from his amputations. He was told it would take him about three months to walk, but he said: "I did it in three hours. I'm more active since I lost my legs than before."

In February 2021, Hopper was shortlisted in the European Space Agency's search for an astronaut with a disability and featured in a documentary around his progress towards heading to space.

“When I saw the advertisement from the European Space Agency for a para astronaut, I had to put in an application. The criteria were quite specific; you had to have a doctorate in engineering or medicine, you had to have a disability below the knee, and you had to speak a second language – hey, Welsh! At first my wife . . . thought I was completely crazy!”

Looking back on his experiences he said: “I remember imagining the operation – operations which I do all the time and thinking that power tools were going to be used on me. That was really difficult to process. I was in hospital for about six or seven weeks. The physical changes in my body were fairly easy to understand, but what I didn’t understand were the psychological changes and how hard it was just to fit back into family life.”

Prosthetic legs provided the turning point in his recovery. “I was starting to think I’d never be able to go back to work, I’d never be able to play football with Harry, walk the dog on the beach – that’s the kind of mindset I had. But once I got legs, things started to change overnight, the future didn’t look so bleak.”

At the time, he was told that he had better reconsider his career, as it would not be “possible or practical” for him to return to the theatre.

“I was determined to go back to work. I wanted to prove that they were completely wrong. Throughout my career I’d always tried to imagine what it was like to have an amputation, so I didn’t expect to get the answer.

“I didn’t think I’d get the chance to see what it’s like on the other side of the knife. My experience has made me think more about how I communicate with patients. I believe it has made me a better doctor.”