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- [00:01]
Luke Jones
Do you want more True Crime to
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binge after this episode, the True Crime
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Luke Jones
Network is packed with gripping cases that are every bit as shocking as they are true. On Paranormia, Elizabeth is taking you back to 1969 to explore the chilling story of Charles Manson, who manipulated his followers into carrying out a series of murders that he believed would spark an apocalyptic race war. And on Seeing Red, Mark and Bethan
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are examining the tragic case of Annie Diwani, whose honeymoon in South Africa turned
- [00:32]
Luke Jones
into a nightmare when she was fatally shot during a taxi journey.
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Head to always truecrime.com to listen to
- [00:37]
Luke Jones
these shows and discover even more true crime.
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- [01:44]
Dani Pellegrino
This ad is sponsored by zocdoc I hi, it's Dani Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use ZocDoc now. As a busy podcaster, parent, and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. And ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in network Doctors. With over 250,000 providers across more than 200 specialties, you can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last minute health issue pop up and needed to see someone fast and instead of calling around or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on zocdoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. It made the whole process so much less stressful. Now taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZOC Document app today. That's ZocDoc Z o c d o c. And book that appointment on your to do list.
- [02:49]
Monica Reinagle
Hello, I'm Monica Reinagle, host of the Nutrition Diva podcast. Summer is here and with it the hot and sticky weather. A morning working in the garden or maybe on the golf course can leave you more depleted than you realize. And plain water isn't always the most efficient way to restore the balance. That's where Liquid IV comes in. Its science backed formula is clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're exercising, playing outside, or simply surviving a summer heat wave, it's an easy way to stay hydrated. Shop now@liquidiv.com Liquid IV hydration that goes wherever life takes you.
- [03:26]
Luke Jones
They did the damage to him, you know, and make our life more harder
- [03:32]
Louisa Adams
than it used to be.
- [03:34]
Luke Jones
Seven long episodes ago, we set out trying to understand why a surgeon would move all the way to a small and remote British island in the South Atlantic and not only not help many people, but actually end up being accused of injuring, maiming, and even disabling some of his patients. Well, when I read the enormity of his negligence, I wondered that. My first thought was, well, how did he get away with it for so long? As you will have already heard, we didn't just uncover some awful stories from victims, but also allegations of a watered down police investigation and accusations that the government even blocked access to justice for its own citizens. I really feel like we're we'll either win this or I'll die trying to win this. I've got plenty of questions. I know from our inbox and from my DMs that many of you have as well. So today we're going to try and answer some of them from audio always Ameli Luke Jones. This is The Surgeon of St. Helena, Episode 8 what next? Right, let's get to it then. And I should say this is a video episode as well. So you can see this video on YouTube or our Patreon. The links are in the description and you can see some of the many things that we're talking about here as well. Let's do some updates. First of all about the case, the civil claims that have been going on. It's quite a short update this one, not much to say. It could be at some point this year that there's some white smoke over whether the High Court will actually allow them to move these civil claims to a court in England, such are the concerns about St. Helena. But the wheels of justice move slowly, especially here in the uk. So we don't know what is happening with that. We do know that Nigel Phillips, the governor who you briefly hear in the series, is retiring from the diplomatic service. He was coming to the end of his term as governor of St. Helena. He is going to be succeeded by a diplomat called Belinda Lewis, who was formerly the ambassador for Kuwait City and also the deputy head of mission for Baghdad. It's quite an interesting, varied career. She's going to take over in September 2026 and not long to go. We have had some reaction from the series. We'll get into some of the questions that people have sent in, but also on a kind of political level. Lots of expat saints, if they live in the uk, tend to live in Swindon for reasons I don't quite understand. So one person who knows quite a bit about their plight is former MP Robert Buckland, who's also a former Lord Chancellor, Justice Secretary in one of the sort of latter Tory governments. He sort of saw all of our reporting and said he was, quote, deeply concerned about the plight of the victims of this appalling negligence. He said attempts by the Sent Helena government to limit liability due to victims are an affront to the rule of law. Action should be taken quickly, he says, before even more victims die, before receiving the damages to that are due to them. Interestingly, we've also had a bit of reaction from Guatemala as well. A number of people have got in touch with me saying that they have been patients of Dr. Sergio after he came back from St. Helena. One person got in touch to say that he said that he'd had experience of working in the uk, something that we know in the series he mentioned in his CV, which is quite the misrepresentation of his time in St. Helena, not part of the United Kingdom. Another person said that a close relative of theirs had had a couple of surgeries by Dr. Sergio and again, like we heard in the series, had gone badly, had had to go somewhere else to try and get help. They'd had infections. So they said they were shocked when they saw all the things that we'd uncovered about his time on St. Helena. Let's get to some questions because plenty of you have been sending them in. Louisa, Produce extraordinaire on the series is with me to leaf through some of them. That's where we're going to start.
- [07:37]
Louisa Adams
Let's start with Dr. Sergio because lots of questions have been coming in about him. The first one is from Sarah, who got in touch on Instagram and she asks a very valid question. Was Sergio qualified?
- [07:49]
Luke Jones
As far as we know, he was obviously. On his cv, he makes mention of studying at university in. In Guatemala and qualifying there. I've found online some of his work as a. As a sort of trainee doctor, a sort of thesis that he wrote. We don't know finally and absolutely if he was qualified. He, on his Instagram does have photographs of him with his qualifications in the background. One person who you don't hear in the series at one point did some digging around. Dr. Sergio, a sort of medical type, did say they could never get to the bottom properly of the question of over whether he actually qualified. And some surgeons did also get in touch with me saying, you know, they were shocked at what happened, but they did say things like watching a video of the surgery before you do it, they say is normal or does happen. There are lots of instructive videos online of various surgeries that people might be doing, but they said it's not normal to do it in front of the patient as that person is just about to slip under anesthetic. But one surgeon did say to me, you'd be surprised how much you could learn on the job by watching and trying things out. As awful as that sounds, you wouldn't necessarily have to be a totally qualified surgeon to get away with some of it. As I've said a million times, we have tried to contact Dr. Sergio to put these things to him, has not responded.
- [09:20]
Louisa Adams
We've had a few questions about who regulates doctors on St. Helena from a few different people. So I'll read them out and then you can answer them all together. So P Roberts first says, I can't understand why he wasn't referred to the General Medical Council for Assessment of competence, giving all the allegations and of course his behaviour, if found guilty, his registration to practice could have been suspended or removed. Sarah says, I would be interested to know under which regulatory body Doctors working in St. Helena must be registered and licensed as a British territory. It used to be the General Medical Council. And then Gnomes on TikTok says, if it's British soil, is it covered by GMC regs?
- [10:02]
Luke Jones
Right. So, yeah, it's the case in the United Kingdom. If you're a medical practitioner, you have to be registered by the General Medical Council and you can, you know, patients and people can make complaints to that and they make sure that you're doing your job properly. It used to be the case many years ago that you sort of had to be registered with the GMC because you had to be licensed to practice in the UK to practice as a doctor or St Helena. So even though the GMC didn't cover St Helena, the fact that you were technically a doctor registered and able to work in the UK covered you there. That then changed. They brought in a rule change a few years ago which added in a few extra places so you could work there if you're a registered doctor in the uk, but also places like India, South Africa, the Republic of Ireland, Pakistan, Sweden, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Guatemala. So. Or as well, another thing which was passed with this ordinance as well was saying that if the chief medical officer of St. Helena approved you and recommended that to the governor, the governor could say, okay, Louisa Adams, you are now fit to practice here on St. Helena. The hope is with that list of countries that say if you are practicing doctor and you're registered in the United States or in South Africa or Pakistan, that will be good enough for you to work on St. Helena. But I don't know how much attention is paid to how strong the safeguards are in places like Guatemala, for example, to ensure that people practicing and people who are registered as medical doctors are fit to practice because otherwise you are just taking it on face value.
- [11:38]
Louisa Adams
Yeah. So we're assuming that those doctors would be regulated for their home country. Regulators. There's not a central regulation.
- [11:47]
Luke Jones
But then that raises issues because if you are a. So let's take the surgery example or say I'm a doctor registered in Guatemala and I'm working on St Helena by virtue of the fact that I'm registered in Guatemala. Are the authorities in Guatemala coming in, checking on my work? Does a patient who doesn't have a good time with me in St. Helena know, okay, they can contact some regulatory authority in Guatemala to sort of flag an issue. It doesn't seem as simple as it would be, you know, here in the uk. So that is the current state of things.
- [12:19]
Louisa Adams
Okay, great question. Thank you. Sarah, here is a question that has come through about the hospital. Did you go inside the hospital where Sergio worked and what was it like?
- [12:33]
Luke Jones
To my mind as a layman, it sort of looked quite nice. It was a sort of large, quite sort of breezy building, a sort of yellowish color. At the entrance. There was lots of pot plants, I remember sort of spilling out the front and we went in there to try. And when on one sort of visit, Ruth was trying to get access to some of her patients medical records because they'd had a sort of long running issue that they hadn't been able to, even with the patient's consent, been able to get their hands on that. And I don't know, it looked sort of what you'd expect. I managed to look into a little sort of consulting room. I mean, it's a bit like what you'd expect your GP practice to look like, but in a hot country bed, desk, computer, lots and lots of posters on the wall to do with diabetes clinics and your weight and are you trying to quit smoking? Here's the kind of service you can get on board with. So at that surface level, to my mind, it looked perfectly proper, as we know, historic issues with staffing aside. But yeah, it looked like what you'd expect hospital to look like.
- [13:39]
Louisa Adams
Great. Okay, here is another question along similar lines from Rosemary, who read your article in the Times. She asks, somebody appointed Dr. Sergio and somebody was responsible for monitoring him. Who are they? They must be held accountable.
- [13:55]
Luke Jones
Well, there's the rub, because the person who was chief medical officer at the time was person who we mentioned in the series, Dr. Carlos Soto, fellow Guatemalan. And so he will have been responsible for hiring Sergio, even though there are obviously slices of management above in St. Helena. There's a kind of person who's a kind of director of health services. It would have been this Carlos Soto chap who would have been responsible for hiring him and also making sure he was up to scratch and I guess maybe even looking over some complaints that came as well. And that is one of the issues which is raised in the series. Bernard and Sandra, the coppers, British coppers who went out there to go investigate him. You know, they say that they heard from people in the hospital who said they tried to complain, but were told actually Sergio knows what he's doing. Basically, butt out. So I guess if you were going to point the finger at somebody, it would be Dr. Carlos Soto. But as we know, he left the island pretty sharpish. When that police investigation into Sergio is underway, there are a number of civil claims that Ruth and her team are dealing with which relate to him as well. So, yeah, the question of holding him accountable, I mean, I guess it's also as difficult as doing the same with Sergio. He's not here anymore. What are you going to do about it?
- [15:08]
Louisa Adams
Yeah, and there's a question here that's coming from Jay that kind of, I suppose, speaks to Both Sergio and Dr. Soto and most doctors on the island. But why did Dr. Sergio choose to further his career on a remote island like St Helena to Jay, it doesn't sound like an obvious choice. And related to that, he would be interested to know about Sergio's career before he went there. If there was any controversy, any allegations or complaints.
- [15:37]
Luke Jones
On that point, we don't know. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest there were people upset with Sergio's work where he previously worked. As we say in the series, he does make mention of working in the US for a time. The only mention of that I can see is in Sergio's cv. And I've tried to get in touch with those places and they've not played ball. So who knows, A, if you worked in those places like in the us, and B, if it was all above board and up to scratch on the question of why would you go and further your work on an island like St. Helena? I guess it's tricky if you're a doctor, because it's not necessarily a place where you will have all the equipment that you would need, that there is a larger hospital or medical system that you can sort of move around and up through. I don't know, would you see it as a particularly interesting challenge where you're having to do more things because, you know, there isn't the full complement of staff that you might expect in a large hospital. And also, if you're from Guatemala, it's. It's a very good salary. It's around £100,000. We understand that Sergio was on. And you are getting to live on this lush tropical island. There are plenty of people who we met who are some of these kind of TCs, as they're called, people from abroad who come out and do some of these sort of technical jobs, who were so drawn to the place because what a fabulous place to live in, a small and friendly community. So I'm sure that would, you know, good salary and living on a tropical island would. Would entice some people to move there.
- [17:10]
Louisa Adams
And there was also someone we spoke to who mentioned about getting a St. Helenian or qualifying for a British passport.
- [17:18]
Luke Jones
Right, yes. Oh, yeah, good point. So, yeah, we've met. We met some people who were. They were from one of the sort of African countries which, if, you know, if you just go due east, you'll end up hitting. And they were saying one of the benefits for them as being someone moving to St Helena to work there is that if you stay there for a number of years, you can then apply for St. Helena citizenship. And then once you've done that, it then basically allows you to travel to and live in and work in the uk because you are a British citizen then. So actually there was some sort of upset among some saints about that, that, you know, people using it as a sort of backdoor into the United Kingdom. But, yeah, definitely that would be a draw as well, that if you were happy to stick it out for a number of years, you might get to move to the UK when otherwise you wouldn't be able to.
- [18:05]
Louisa Adams
Well, I hope that answers your question, Jay. So here's another question from Martin and it's about insurance. Did Sergio have malpractice cover? I would have expected doctors practicing in any British territory to be required to hold malpractice cover, most comm. Commonly through the Medical Protection Society, which is based in the uk. I also wondered if the hospital maintains some sort of insurance cover.
- [18:30]
Luke Jones
So if we take the hospital side of that, first of all, hospital is run and funded by the St. Helena government. Our understanding is that they don't have insurance because the ones indemnifying them eventually are the UK government, the treasury, from where they get the vast majority of their budget from as part of foreign aid in the uk. There's a sort of slightly different system in England where if you were a surgeon and you chopped off my leg and I didn't like that, I wouldn't sue you, I would sue your employer, the NHS trust, and they are covered by a body called NHS Resolution. In terms of Sergio himself, the confusing thing is, which sort of gets to your question, Martin, is that he was both an employee of the St Helena government. If you were in the UK and you were the employee of an NHS trust, you wouldn't need your own indemnity insurance because you'd be covered by that as a hospital. You'd only need insurance if you were working as a private consultant or surgeon or what have you. And yet we do know that Sergio did have insurance. Maybe that is a reason why, if you're working in a British overseas territory, they require it. We know he had insurance, has insurance because when Ruth first started litigating against the San Helena government for these, for these issues, it was Mario's case, Mario Peters, who you hear in the series, and that's the only one that sort of made any kind of progress in the court system. And what the Santa Helena government did is they did a kind of order which brought Sergio in on the claim, then basically saying, well, if you're coming for us, you need to be coming for him as well. And Sergio has a lawyer who has been appointed by his insurers. So there is a solicitor in the UK who is acting on the interest of Sergio's insurer. So quite a complicated picture. Again, unlike the uk. Similar in the UK in certain respects, but you've got a hostel system that doesn't have insurance. That's maybe not surprising because it's the UK government that basically funds it all anyway. And yet Sergio does. But before all of that, you get to that point when you know who needs paying and how much. We're not even at that point yet. All of these people haven't even been able to litigate their claims, haven't been able to appear in a court and argue, well, I need this much for this reason. So we're some way down the chain.
- [20:50]
Louisa Adams
Yeah, quite far down the chain, it feels.
- [20:55]
Ad Host 2
This episode is sponsored by zocdoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use Zoc Doc actually over the holidays Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed. But we hopped onto ZOC Dock, found an in network dentist, had great reviews, saw real time appointments available, which was key. It was on New Year's Day and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. Zoc Doc Mitsubishi Easy to search and compare. Over 250,000 local in network providers across more than 200 specialties. So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today and book that appointment on your to do list. That's Z O C D O C zocdoc Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. Grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Growing grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growthherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
- [22:58]
Ad Host 1
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- [23:57]
Monica Reinagle
host of the Nutrition Diva podcast. Summer is here and with it the hot and sticky weather. A morning working in the garden or maybe on the golf course can leave you more depleted than you realize. And plain water isn't always the most efficient way to restore the balance. That's where Liquid IV comes in. Its science backed formula is clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're exercising, playing outside, or simply surviving a summer heat wave, it's an easy way to stay hydrated. Shop now@liquidiv.com Liquid IV hydration that goes wherever life takes you.
- [24:34]
Louisa Adams
Let's move on then from Sergio. I have a few questions here about the island more generally. Here's a question that's coming from Josh who asks the saints accents are really interesting. What is the demographic of the island?
- [24:47]
Luke Jones
Yeah, it's an interesting one, the accent, which I haven't been able to fully understand why it is the way it is. As we say in the series, there is a real mix on the island, not just of obviously British influence. There are people now who've come from places like South Africa and from Zimbabwe, but also a lot of people are descended from some of the slaves taken from the sort of East Indies and sort of parts covered by the East India Company back in the day. So it's a real mix. We did ask somebody when we were out there, a saint themselves, how would they account for the accent they that they have? It's a guy called Craig who is a fabulous photographer and videographer but also with his family runs a sort of tourism company and a cab company for our purposes. So he did a lot of good work for us. And this is how Craig explained it.
- [25:37]
Ad Host 1
We call it broken English. So we cut our words shorter. Like just now. I didn't say shorter, I said shorter.
- [25:44]
Louisa Adams
Yeah.
- [25:44]
Ad Host 1
I've had a few people ask about if I have toys to New Zealand or Australia. If my mom was saying to me, oh, can I get her bread from the shop? We don't say bread, we say breed. So she will. I'll ring her and I'll say, oh, I got your breed from down to shop.
- [26:01]
Luke Jones
Yeah.
- [26:01]
Ad Host 1
So it was like D a duh.
- [26:03]
Luke Jones
And where do you think it comes from?
- [26:06]
Ad Host 1
I think I would say I picked it up just from my parents and they picked it up from the appearance, and it just came down to generations. As you talk to other people on the island, you will understand the types of people that came to the island way, way back is always a mixture of people. You know, we've had people talk about Chinese, talk about South Africans from all parts of the world, so I would say you inherit a bit of everything from everyone.
- [26:35]
Luke Jones
Thank you, Craig, for that. So we sort of don't know. I think I describe in the series as it sounds, it sounds a bit sort of deep South American. It's got like a Tennessee twang. I remember Julie Thomas, the former chief minister, in the sort of session of chief minister's questions that we watched. I remembered her referring to the chair of the meeting as chair and thinking, gosh, that sounds like old school, deep South American. But that's clearly not the influence. It's just a sort of mix of everything else that has ended up incredible.
- [27:08]
Louisa Adams
Yeah. And I did think as we were moving around the island, it varied between person as well. Like some people had very different accents to each other, but it still felt distinctly sent Hellenian.
- [27:18]
Luke Jones
And there were people as well, maybe a bit like Craig, who had traveled a bit, but also Colby, who had been at university in the south of England, who could code switch quite well.
- [27:28]
Louisa Adams
Yeah.
- [27:28]
Luke Jones
And when talking to us, could sort of iron out the edges of the accent and be clearer.
- [27:34]
Louisa Adams
Yeah. Well, hopefully that answers your question, Josh. Lots of people, actually, who I've spoken to about the series have been keen to hear more about the plane ride into St. Helena. Some people said that it sounded scary. So tell us a bit more about that, Luke.
- [27:51]
Luke Jones
I don't think I did find it. Well, you came on the plane as well. Did you find it scary?
- [27:54]
Louisa Adams
I didn't find it scary. I think you. You fly over a lot you know, a lot of water for a long time. And when they say. When they say we've passed the point of no return, that is a little bit like, oh, yeah, hope we could land. But I didn't find it scary. It's just a sort of. You are. You feel like you're going into the unknown if you've not done it before.
- [28:10]
Luke Jones
Y and you go from, you know, the relative busy bustle of Johannesburg as we flew from. There are some flights in some parts here that go from Cape Town and then you have to stop on this sort of outer edge of Namibia on the coast, which I know what I was expecting. I've seen lots of pictures of sort of pink flamingos in Namibia, sort of wading through lots of water. This just looked like desert, bare, empty desert as far as the eye could see. And yet we were at this little sort of airport landing strip and a sort of single truck of fuel came up, refueled us. I think they did crack the door open to get a bit of air.
- [28:44]
Louisa Adams
They did, yeah, very hot.
- [28:46]
Luke Jones
And then up and away we went again. And yeah, as you say, you do just look out and see sea, ocean forever and ever and ever until. And I will not forget the sight of seeing the island emerging out of the. All the fog that was drifting around those sort of particularly volcanic edges is exactly as Sandra described it looking like almost lunar. And that's the mad thing that when you land on the airport, it does look a bit bleak and barren and that dark rock. You'd never believe that just driving five minutes inland, it all of a sudden turns green and villagey and lush and there are sheep and cows. Yeah, it's so full of contrasts.
- [29:26]
Louisa Adams
Yeah, it really is. And I think we probably felt Sandra's description quite acutely when we landed, because it felt exactly how she described it.
- [29:36]
Luke Jones
And also the nice thing was we traveled all that way. It's a tropical island. It was warm. We got there. It was just that thick drizzle for hours. So far from London and the rain had followed us. Anyway, you can go if you'd like.
- [29:47]
Dani Pellegrino
If.
- [29:48]
Luke Jones
Anyway, I would recommend, you know, if you want to go and travel there yourself, you can do. There are hotels, you can stay there if you want to go and dive with whale sharks. Add it onto your holiday list, you'll need a lot of money.
- [29:57]
Louisa Adams
David asks, how is Jonathan the tortoise getting on? Wasn't he caught up in a viral scam?
- [30:04]
Luke Jones
He was. So this is. It was all over the news. Well, maybe I was just looking out for St. Helena things, because we were deep in making the series when this happened. So we met Jonathan the tortoise, big old 194-year-old tortoise as he is now the oldest living land animal on earth. Guinness world record holder, officially top shagger grass eater according to the gardener who worked the gardens around him. And yeah, there was a post on X as you know, big source of misinformation these days from someone purporting to be the vet on the island who said, and I quote, heartbroken to share that our beloved Jonathan, the world's oldest living land animal, has passed away today peacefully on St Helena. As his vet for many years, it was an honor to care for him. Hand feeding bananas, watching him bask in the sun and marveling at his quiet wisdom. He leaves behind a legacy of resilience and longevity that inspired millions. Rest easy, old friend. You'll be missed more than words can say. And this was picked up in places like the Mail, the BBC, USA Today. Actually it turns out it was a load of bs. They actually got the governor, who obviously lives in Plantation House where Jonathan lives, to go there and take a picture of Jonathan to prove no, he is alive and well and carrying on with his long life. And the whole thing was a crypto scam. It was one of these things which I didn't really realize existed where if you post something like that you'll get loads of followers and then you can then do follow up tweets being like, oh, and by the way, you might want to invest in this very dodgy crypto scheme. So, yeah, very 20, 26 stushy for all Jonathan to get involved with.
- [31:49]
Louisa Adams
He's very much alive and well.
- [31:50]
Luke Jones
He's very much alive and well given
- [31:51]
Louisa Adams
that he's met so many people in his time. Does he have an ego?
- [31:54]
Luke Jones
Yeah, I think I'd say he did, yeah. I tried. Well, I got really close to him, trying capture him munching away at the grass, but he just was like, yeah, yeah, he's very angry and hissy and actually when you look at his face you do think like it does look like you're looking at a dinosaur. You can believe he's almost 200 years old. He looks sort of prehistoric. Maybe you would have an ego if you were that old and had met, you know, there's pictures of him meeting the late Queen Elizabeth as like a sort of young woman. He's been around a long time. Didn't meet Napoleon though, obviously.
- [32:25]
Louisa Adams
Just missed him, Just missed him. And he does, he does move like he was moving around and if you're watching the video episode of this, you will see, but he kind of, he had quite a stroll about him.
- [32:39]
Luke Jones
He does a swagger, you might say. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't seem sort of like old and decrepit. No, he's sort of, yeah. And actually all the other sort of slightly younger tortoises who were sort of dotted around him seemed just as sort of limber. He was keeping up with the young un's.
- [32:53]
Louisa Adams
He was, yeah, yeah.
- [32:54]
Luke Jones
I don't even know how old he will live until.
- [32:56]
Louisa Adams
This is the thing.
- [32:57]
Luke Jones
I don't know if he's stretching the limit of what you'd expect a tortoise of that variety to live to. Maybe he's got another hundred years.
- [33:05]
Louisa Adams
Maybe that's a lot of more people to meet. So the Jonathan fake death scandal was not the only thing that was in the news about St Helena after we'd left the island. There was also something else.
- [33:20]
Luke Jones
Having barely heard of St Helena before we started on this, then I couldn't move for it in the news. So everyone might remember the hantavirus. Hoo ha. So there was the ship, the MV Hondius, that was going up through the South Atlantic and had this virus, this Andes virus, the only hantavirus which can unfortunately move from human to human. And various people got off at different points. So people might remember the video footage that was on the news of medics and supplies being air dropped by paratroopers onto Tristan da Cunha, which is another British island southwest of St. Helena, where there's just 250 people and no, no airport, no tortoises or anything. But then some people did get off at St Helena. Thirty passengers disembarked there, which again, if you're a small island like St. Helena, you know, you heard in the series how strict they were about COVID They've got an aging population, lots of people with complicated health conditions. You do not want some virus that's going to challenge those people thoroughly on your island. So they did lots of health security issues. They actually tried to sort of figure out where some of those people who landed on the island then went to. We do know that the first person to die, a Dutch passenger who was on the ship, got off at St. Helena with his wife. He died. His remains went to South Africa with the wife who then later fell ill and died herself. So a real tense situation if you're living on St. Helena. But touch wood for the people living there. It seems to have panned out. Okay, good.
- [34:59]
Louisa Adams
That's really good news. Back to the podcast series, then. What has the reaction been like on the island to it?
- [35:06]
Luke Jones
Well, we know there's been lots of coverage in Vince's paper, St. Helena Independent. I know that we gave the series to Saint fm, which is one of the radio stations on the island. We sort of discovered when we were there that, you know, lots of people, some people don't have the Internet there because it's very expensive. And if you're not a particularly online person, I mean, you live in a tropical island in the middle of nowhere, you know, might be quite nice to live without the Internet. Lots of people still listen to the radio and lots of people would, if they knew things, it was because they heard it on the radio. So we put the series on there. We heard from one contributor saying that on the island that the reaction has been mixed, didn't we?
- [35:43]
Louisa Adams
We did.
- [35:45]
Luke Jones
I perish to think what that actually means. Some people sort of happy that some of this information was out there. Some people not so. But I guess that kind of reflects what we found on the island when we were. There were some people who didn't like what was going on because they were saying, well, you know, it's going to bankrupt the government. Sergio, you know, I had an operation by Sergio. He was fine. So there was already a bit of a divide on the island as regards this story, actually. Surprising number of people who didn't really know a lot about it anyway. Just that there'd been some doctor about which there'd been concerns.
- [36:16]
Monica Reinagle
Yeah.
- [36:18]
Luke Jones
So I guess the reaction to the series has fallen along those. Those expected lines.
- [36:22]
Louisa Adams
Good. What was the most surprising thing about St. Helena?
- [36:27]
Luke Jones
What was the most surprising thing?
- [36:30]
Louisa Adams
I thought the. I don't know about you.
- [36:32]
Luke Jones
I thought the food in parts was surprisingly good.
- [36:34]
Louisa Adams
It was, yeah, it was.
- [36:34]
Luke Jones
I took lots of sort of packet soups and dried meats and chocolate biscuits, stupidly, which all melted. I was expecting to be really hungry, but actually we had some very nice fried wahoo. Lots of chips. Lots of chips. If you like variations of tuna, you're on to a winner.
- [36:53]
Louisa Adams
The tuna was amazing. But you don't really like fish, Luke,
- [36:55]
Luke Jones
so that's not as challenging. And also, I think this wildlife aspect of it, we didn't kind of link on it on the series, but swimming with a whale shot was absolutely fantastic. I can completely understand Colby. The lady took us out on the boat, but, like, what a great thing to be able to do. You know, he's, you know, described the day before going out with his mates. And seeing all those devil rays swimming around, you think that is. That's quite amazing.
- [37:15]
Louisa Adams
Yeah.
- [37:16]
Luke Jones
As terrifying as whale sharks. Look. I was saying someone the other day, it does. We were driving around on this boat for ages trying to find this whale shark. They just somehow managed to sort of look out on the ocean and go, oh, yeah, there's one there. Because they could sort of see a shadow of it. Dived into the water. I don't know if you had the same feeling that you're sort of swimming along, swimming along, swimming. Okay, why am I swimming quickly towards a shark? This isn't maybe what we should be doing. And then just seeing, emerging out of the gloom, what looked like a kind of 8 year old child's drawing outline of a shark. Like it looked like Jaws in profile. Vegetarian, though, as we kept being told. I thought it was absolutely terrifying. But then eventually I got so braver and got closer. You got quite close as well, so that was quite surprising. I wasn't expecting that.
- [38:02]
Louisa Adams
Yeah.
- [38:03]
Luke Jones
All these David Attenborough moments.
- [38:04]
Louisa Adams
You did have a lot of David Attenborough moments. And I think the thing for me as like an audio producer was the equally the wildlife, but the sound of the birds. I think you just get really used to the. You know, you hear the pigeons cooing here in the UK in the summer and you just get used to the sound of the birds. But there was a particular tree in this lovely, very well kept garden in the middle, sort of in the center of town. It sort of looked like a park that you would find in the uk. And then there's just this cacophony of birds behind it.
- [38:33]
Luke Jones
It's so loud. Interestingly, I spoke to someone the other day who has traveled in their time to Pitcairn, obviously the subject of the previous series, and they said the one thing you got wrong in that was at some points in the series you can hear bird sounds. And he said, on Pitcairn, there is next to no bird sound.
- [38:51]
Ad Host 2
Wow.
- [38:51]
Luke Jones
There's some sea birds, but basically nowhere near as many birds as you'd think. It's actually surprisingly very quiet. So obviously. But not the case in St. Helena.
- [39:00]
Louisa Adams
That is fascinating. Speaking of making the series, lots of people are wanting to know a bit more about that. Someone asked how did the experience of making the surgeon of St. Helena compare to the Pitcairn trials, bearing in mind that you were able to get boots on the ground in St. Helena?
- [39:17]
Luke Jones
Yeah. Flip flops on the ground in St. Helena. Well, I think that made all the difference, obviously. The difference with Pitcairn was a lot of the story we were telling was about people who were not on Pitcairn, if that makes sense. Sort of a lot of it actually concerned non Pitcairners or people like Glenda who had moved away many, many years ago in the 70s. But it was good to actually go to Helena and sort of understand the vibe and the place and the sort of rhythms of life and what it looks like and how close places are. And you know, I remember after Pitcairn someone got in touch with me who lived on one of the sort of crown dependencies around the uk. I can't remember which one. And they said, oh, it's like I said, it's a certain type of island life and mentality that only island people understand. And it was good to actually go there and sort of feel a whiff of that. Not just the kind of gossipy, everyone knows who's doing what kind of thing, but just how people go about their day to day life. I mean, I remember Vince sort of talking about how much like he did not want to go into Jamestown. It was just like, oh, it was always such a faff and the busyness and the queue at the bank and everything, which, I don't know, it's just sort of understanding the types of people who want to not only live in these remote places, but also even find Jamestown, the small capital city, like a bit much.
- [40:42]
Louisa Adams
Yeah.
- [40:43]
Luke Jones
So to actually see and feel all of that I thought was very useful.
- [40:46]
Louisa Adams
Yeah, definitely. And also I think you've got like a diversity of thought in a way that if you don't visit a place, you don't necessarily. You're just speaking to a couple of people remotely or whatever.
- [40:55]
Luke Jones
Yes.
- [40:56]
Louisa Adams
I felt like we were exposed to lots of different people's opinions, even if they didn't want to or feel that they could contribute.
- [41:02]
Luke Jones
And what was quite nice, which I quite like doing of an evening, was going to the pub and finding there are a few different pubs and bars on the island and, you know, like ended up chatting to all these kind of like 18 year old lads about what they were up to. One of them had a sort of criminal conviction, was worried about not getting work anymore on the island. The extent to which they all wanted to leave or stay, what their issues were. There was a woman I remember speaking to who was telling me about the mental health provision on the island and how bad that was and their concerns about suicide. So it's just like all these different things, as you say, we'd have necessarily no reason to inquire about. Just by hanging around the place. You can hear a bit about whether if I were to now go to Pitcairn, if any of the 33 people living there would talk to me. I think is a different matter. On an island of 4,000, you've got more of a chance of people opening up.
- [41:57]
Louisa Adams
It was funny you should say that, because Niall got in touch to say, having made both the Pitcairn Trials and the surgeon of St. Helena, is there a place that you'd prefer to visit?
- [42:05]
Luke Jones
Oh, I have the two of them. Oh, definitely Saint Helena, because Pitcairn. Well, actually, I would. I would really like to go to pick. And so maybe I should say Pitcairn, because I have done Saint Helena and I would love to see Pitcairn, because, again, the amount of people who say, again, I saw some of the other day who'd been to Pitcairn, the look and feel of these remote historic places is something you want to experience, especially if you spent so long thinking about it or talking to people to do with it. I would like to go and actually just see that for myself. I mean, whether they'd even let me off a ship is one thing. As we know, people like Ben Fogel struggled in the past. Yeah. To get off on Pitcairn would be another thing. But to, yeah, even just try and. And see it would be quite good.
- [42:50]
Louisa Adams
Now, obviously, the surgeon of St Helena was born from the Pitcairn trials because a listener got in touch.
- [42:57]
Luke Jones
Yes.
- [42:58]
Louisa Adams
In response to that, this question asks, how does an email from a listener become a whole series? What is the process there?
- [43:06]
Luke Jones
That it's just very enticing and interesting. So the person who sent the email that got this series going again, I think I said in the series, the subject line was something kind of like more outrageous scandal or something? So my ears were immediately pricked up and. And they actually started having long phone conversations with them, started reading around it, speaking to other people. You then get a sense of, is there something there to report on, who might be able to speak to? What are the contours of it? You start thinking about practical story things about, you know, does this have the elements of an interesting story that someone might want to listen to? 6, 7, 8 episodes of? So if you are listening to this in Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Gibraltar, Sandwich Island, South Georgia, I'm trying to think of all my British overseas territories. I'd be less interested in going to South Georgia, that's quite cold and bleak. But again, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos. Luke Jones, always truecrime.com great listeners will
- [44:09]
Louisa Adams
remember some of the responses that you got from those in charge of the island while we were there.
- [44:14]
Luke Jones
We're keen to interview you about why laws are being passed to stop saints getting justice Us. Thank you.
- [44:21]
Dani Pellegrino
Have a good day.
- [44:21]
Luke Jones
You've been frustrating people's efforts to get the compensation they need. Look, sorry, I'm not going to be
- [44:27]
Louisa Adams
harassed, but why do people not get
- [44:28]
Luke Jones
accountability for the decisions you've taken as Chief Minister?
- [44:31]
Monica Reinagle
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
- [44:32]
Louisa Adams
This listener would like to ask to what extent should we be seeking answers from the British government when it comes to finding justice for those on St. Helena and Pickett?
- [44:44]
Luke Jones
Yes, well, on the St. Helena point, I get. Well, if you're asking who the book stops with short of the UK Prime Minister, who obviously leads a government who can legislate on behalf of St Helena directly, even though St Helena doesn't have any representation in the UK Parliament. I'd be interested to know what the Overseas Minister, Overseas Territories Minister thinks of this at time of recording Stephen Doughty. But maybe by the time this goes out, we'll have had the change in government. Who knows if he'll still be in post. As I've said to lots of people, they are also the minister for Europe and North America, not unbusy patches. And this is a story from just one of the handful of bush overseas territories that exist. So I guess, you know, there is something that they could do if they wanted both in a legislative way. They're also responsible for ensuring good governance and access to justice on St. Helena. But also they're the ones who hold the money strings as well. I think it was Vince who made the point of, you know, money talks. So we do know now that St. Helena has had not just its one year foreign aid grant agreed, but the next three years, it's also had an extension of a deal to allow Chagossian migrants from the British Indian Ocean territory. You know, Chagos got Dagosir people who descended from there to move to. To St Helena. They've got about £9 million worth of funding for that. So I don't know there's levers that the British government could pull if they wanted St Helena to do things differently or do things to help the current situation as they would see it. But have they pulled any? We don't know.
- [46:28]
Louisa Adams
Do you believe the people of St. Helena will ever receive justice and do you think it will happen within their lifetime?
- [46:38]
Luke Jones
Well, it depends what you mean by justice. If you mean the conclusion of civil claims in a right and proper way, as they should be. I don't know. That's a big question that's up in the air at the moment. If it's the case that at some point later this year the High Court in England says, yep, you can port those claims over here. We think St Helena is too hostile and the law is similar enough for you to move this here. You know that could happen in a matter of years, low digit years, that all of these claims could be worked through and people could get the help that they need. But then what happens if they say no? Yeah, I don't know what their recourse to justice is. So in terms of will it happen within people's lifetime? There's already been people who've had claims as part of this cohort, most of which making claims against Dr. Sergio who have died and haven't been able to pursue it. It's something that we see with like the post office scandal and with the infected blood scandal. It gets to a point where these things drag on for so long that those who need that compensation and deserve that compensation don't live to actually see it if and when it comes.
- [47:45]
Louisa Adams
And one last question for you here, Luke. Have you considered a journey to Guatemala to find out the impact of Dr. Sergio there?
- [47:55]
Luke Jones
No, but maybe we should.
- [47:57]
Louisa Adams
Yeah, maybe we should.
- [47:59]
Luke Jones
We know where he works. I've got an. I can't say too much but I've sort of got a good idea of some places where you might be able to find him, having been lost an absolute rabbit hole the other day trying to track him down. But I don't know. But what would he say? We've, you know, you were there when we've tried to contact him and call his office and email him and email representatives and people linked to him and just absolutely no, no response. So maybe we'd get all the way there and it'd just be a door slammed in our face. I mean we didn't have much luck with the sort of pairs that be on St. Helena.
- [48:33]
Ad Host 2
We did it.
- [48:33]
Luke Jones
We were there anyway. So who knows, maybe next year. I hear Guatemala's nicest time of year. Right, so that is it. Thank you very much for listening. If you have any more questions, if you have any fabulous stories from small British or north non British islands from around the world. Luke Jones, always true crime.com is my email address. That is it from us, but do subscribe to this feed if you want to get any more updates or any news on future series that we might be making in this vein. And if you enjoyed it, I mean you must have enjoyed it if you got all the way to this episode, why not send a link to a friend or send them a screenshot and then they can enjoy it as well. But for now, that is it from us. I'm Luke Jones. The producer extraordinaire has been Louisa Adams. Elsa Reese Rochester is the executive producer and this episode has been edited by James Harker.
- [49:32]
Monica Reinagle
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Ad Host 2
I'm Claire Buckley and if your idea
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Luke Jones
of relaxing is listening to seriously unsettling
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Louisa Adams
stories before bed, then you are gonna love my podcast.
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Luke Jones
Pretty scary. From terrifying true crime, haunting ghost tales,
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Ad Host 2
creepy alien encounters, and anything weird, it's the stories that look leave you staring
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Louisa Adams
at the ceiling afterwards questioning absolutely everything. Lock your doors, get comfy and prepare to dive into the Darkness.
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Luke Jones
Just search for Pretty Scary with Clare Buckley. Want More True Crime? This podcast and loads more are part
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Luke Jones
It's packed with box sets to binge and twisted tales you won't find anywhere else. Find your next podcast obsession at Always True crime dot com.