Landing

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Pitcairn Trials

Host: Always True Crime
Episode Title: Landing
Date: June 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Pitcairn Trials—specifically, The Surgeon of St Helena: Episode 4, Landing—host Luke Jones recounts his journey to St. Helena, one of the world's most remote islands, and offers a vivid portrait of its unique community, isolation, and troubled past. The episode transitions into a harrowing account of medical malpractice and sexual abuse perpetrated by Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran. With interviews from islanders, legal experts, and investigators, the episode uncovers how small island dynamics shaped the unfolding—and partial suppression—of a major criminal case.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Journey to St. Helena: A Glimpse into Isolation

• Travel Challenges:

  • St. Helena's only airport temporarily shut down due to safety failures, causing significant anxiety for travelers (01:09).
  • Flights are so uncertain that planes must stop in Namibia for refueling, in case weather or conditions require a return trip (01:30).
  • Luke Jones (01:30):

    “It’s incredible to be on a flight where it is not a given you will make it to your final destination.”

  • Colorful descriptions of passengers: marine biologists, Saints returning from surgery, divers, and an Anglican priest (02:20 onward).

• First Impressions and Island Life:

  • The airport, perched on ‘lunar’ cliffs, is staffed by islanders with multiple roles—including an elected councillor in high viz (04:00).
  • The drive away surprises with green vistas, evoking landscapes of Derbyshire or Scotland.

What St. Helena Looks and Feels Like

• Town Character:

  • Jamestown is characterized by unique architecture, a mix of run-down and polished, resembling “small Scottish islands” and “villages in mainland Africa” (06:30).
  • “The main street looks like it’s from a Western.” – Luke Jones (06:36)
  • The town’s only real hotel, The Consulate, now mostly closed and described as a “grand maximalist, old, slightly dusty but beautiful bar lounge...frozen in time.” (07:33)
  • The much-anticipated tourism boom from the new airport never materialized.

• Community and Social Fabric:

  • Many Saints (St. Helenians) return after years abroad, drawn by family and unique community spirit.
  • Cherry (Returning islander, 11:47):

    “I have an amazing social life. I’m involved in most things in the community.”

  • Island life is tight-knit and “incredibly gossipy.” (13:35)
    • Ruth:

      “So gossipy. I am going to gossip about you now.”

Small Island Multipurpose Work

• Everyone on the island seems to play multiple community roles, with elected officials working airport shifts and legal workers manning bars at the yacht club fish fry (07:54, 11:13).

Encounter with Nature

• Whale Sharks and Island Wonders:
  • Luke joins young local Colby on a boat trip to see whale sharks.
    • Colby:

      “Cornwall’s great, mate. But I tell you what, you can take the island for granted sometimes. Spend 18 years trying to get away, and when you go away, you realize how special this place is.” (10:19)

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Transition to Scandal: The Case of Dr. Sergio

Personal Testimonies of Abuse

• Ruth, a solicitor, and her team are meeting islanders regarding their experiences with Dr. Sergio (14:44).

• A woman describes a deeply traumatic sexual assault perpetrated by Dr. Sergio—her trust in doctors shattered and her medical issues neglected due to fear of seeking help (15:35–19:20).

  • Notable Quote:
    Ruth (15:14):

    “It just fills me with repulsion and outrage that he came here and he felt like he could do whatever he wanted to do to whoever he wanted to and there was going to be no comeback.”

  • Anonymous Woman’s Testimony:

    • Assault involves Dr. Sergio exposing himself and attempting to force her to touch him, locking the door, and only letting her go when she promises to see him at a local nightclub (16:30–17:55).
    • Later, he harasses her physically at the nightclub (19:17).

The Investigative Process

• Sandra, a police investigator, details how the small community and previous hospital issues contributed to reluctance in reporting (19:27).

• The investigators gathered specific descriptions and corroborating statements. An unusual detail involved suspicions about Dr. Sergio’s genitalia being altered with Botox, confirmed by the theft of Botox (20:58–21:54).

  • Sandra:

    “We found that people do administer [Botox] to give their genitalia an enhanced look...” (21:54)

• Legal Proceedings:

  • Dr. Sergio faced seven charges, only five proceeded (“unlawful wounding”), and sexual assault charges were dropped due to lack of evidence presented—prompting frustration from investigators and the community (23:03–25:07).

  • Bernard (25:28):

    “The indictment that he faced bears no real reflection of the magnitude of the offenses... that is in no small part due to the obstacles that were put in the way of the investigation.”

• Outcome and Ongoing Questions:

  • Sergio pleaded guilty to the unlawful wounding charges, with sentencing set for September 2023. After fleeing to Guatemala, he agreed to return—against all expectations (26:09–26:42).
  • Sandra (26:42):

    “I was absolutely staggered when I heard he was coming back. To be honest, we did not expect he'd ever set foot back on the island. I don't know whether he was just so arrogant he thought he'd get away with it. I have no clue why he came back.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Speaker | Timestamp | Quote | | ------------- | ------------ | ------- | | Luke Jones | 01:30 | “It’s incredible to be on a flight where it is not a given you will make it to your final destination.” | | Ruth | 13:35 | “So gossipy. I am going to gossip about you now.” | | Colby | 10:19 | “You can take the island for granted sometimes. Spend 18 years trying to get away. And when you go away, you realize how special this place is.” | | Ruth | 15:14 | “It just fills me with repulsion and outrage that he came here and he felt like he could do whatever he wanted to do to whoever he wanted to and there was going to be no comeback.” | | Sandra | 21:54 | “[Botox] to give their genitalia an enhanced look...” | | Bernard | 25:28 | “The indictment that he faced bears no real reflection of the magnitude of the offenses…that is in no small part due to the obstacles that were put in the way of the investigation.” | | Sandra | 26:42 | “I was absolutely staggered when I heard he was coming back…” |

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:00 — St. Helena isolation and airport woes
• 06:30 — Describing Jamestown’s unique atmosphere
• 09:45 — Whale shark encounter and island youth returning
• 13:35 — Gossipy nature of the small island
• 15:14 — Outrage at Dr. Sergio’s abuse: survivor and solicitor testimonies
• 20:58 — Unusual evidence/details about Dr. Sergio
• 23:03 — Court charges and disappointment at justice system
• 26:42 — Cliffhanger: Dr. Sergio’s unexpected return

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Conclusion & Tone

The episode is striking for its robust sense of place, alternating between wry observation—“dead pigeons,” failed hotels, mock-gossip—and deeply sobering, emotionally charged testimony regarding sexual abuse and institutional failure. The community’s love for home stands in tension with its wariness of outsiders and a justice process frustrated by insularity and systemic barriers.

Next Episode Preview

• The episode ends on a cliffhanger: Dr. Sergio, to his investigators’ astonishment, returns to the island for sentencing. The host promises further revelations in the next installment.

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This summary captures the episode’s engaging blend of travelogue, social observation, and true crime investigation—illuminating the singular world of St. Helena and the devastating scandal at its heart.

Transcript

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

We'll get back to your true crime story in just a moment. This podcast is part of the Always True Crime Network, home of thousands of episodes exploring gripping true crime cases. If you're looking for somewhere to start, check out our recent investigative series, Project Mind Control. It uncovers a chilling chapter in history, examining the disturbing experiments carried out on vulnerable people in an attempt to erase and reprogram the human mind. Featuring testimony from one of the last known survivors of a notorious Canadian psychiatric institution, it's a powerful story that's as shocking as it is important. Check out the show and more@always truecrime.com.

[Luke Jones]

News has reached me that St Helena is actually very, very far from North London. And even though you might be thinking it's only two flights, how difficult could that be? Well,

[Bernard]

one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, the British overseas territory of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, has been left without a functioning airport.

[Luke Jones]

Here was I in February, just as I booked my trip, hearing Chris aldridge on Radio 4 telling me the airport on St Helena was shut and it wasn't anything to do with the windy Runway.

[Bernard]

A major incident has been declared by the local government after Czechs found the facility's fire engines failed to meet international safety standards.

[Luke Jones]

We thought the trip was off. The airport was shut for around two weeks, but thankfully, the week before we were due to set off, flights restarted again. I changed at Johannesburg airport to my airlink flight to St. Helena. We took off flying to Walvis Bay, Namibia, for a refuel. Remember, St. Helena's Airport is so unreliable you have to stop here and refuel. So if you get to St. Helena and have to turn back, you've got enough in the tank. They have low clouds, rain, strong winds. It's incredible to be on a flight where it is not a given. You will make it to your final destination. So we're going to continue to our next point for decision. We'll keep you updated. The pilot updated us on the weather and the landing conditions on St Helena as we went. We made it to stop one refueled and we're back up again, heading out over the vast South Atlantic. On board, there was a lot of Afrikaans chatter I could hear. I saw a marine biologist. The giveaway was a polo shirt which said marine biologist. Some saints were there returning from corrective surgery. There was a Namibian group off to St Helena for a diving trip. I was sitting next to a South African electrician off to do some work at the airport. I daren't ask him what maybe wasn't working. But comfortingly, there was also an Anglican priest on board, off to St Helena to visit the oldest Anglican church in the Southern hemisphere. Fun fact, as you leave Namibia and the warm, empty sands, you end up in nothing but ocean. It took an hour or so until we hit the point of no return. The forecast around St. Helena, thankfully, was good, so we cracked on and then jolts of turbulence as we came through the clouds and I saw that dark, tall rock that is the island's edge. It was just as Bernard and Sandra described, flying towards the clifftop airport. The ground around it looked totally foreign, lunar. As Sandra said, I'm no chicken when it comes to flying. But the approach and the landing was bumpy. In fact, as we got close, the lady behind me yelped, oh, shit. But we did make it. I later learned the lady behind me was visiting St Helena after getting a taste for small islands after volunteering as a rat exterminator off the Northern Irish coast. So there you go. We disembarked the ground staff, the immigration staff, the baggage handlers, all there for one flight in and one flight out a week, all of them islanders doing this as a Saturday job. In fact, one of the people in a high vis jacket shepherding us into the passport control queue is an elected councillor, one of 12 on the Island, a chap called Ronald. On the drive away from the airport, the moon rock is gives away to swathes of green. Driving through the island, all of a sudden, it could be Derbyshire or rural Scotland. What I thought to myself was, I going to find out here about this island, about Sergio, about what happened next. From audio always and me, Luke Jones, this is The Surgeon of St Helena. Episode 4 Landing what did you make of the journey?

[Ruth]

That was a really uneventful journey. Disappointingly uneventful.

[Luke Jones]

I'm just off the Jamestown High street by the harbour with solicitor Ruth.

[Ruth]

No delays of note.

[Luke Jones]

Slightly Bumpy landing on St. Helena.

[Ruth]

No, we didn't have to do a lap.

[Luke Jones]

No, I got to do a lap before.

[Ruth]

I've never had to do a lap, but lots of people have had to do a lap.

[Luke Jones]

Yeah.

[Ruth]

And the time the week before we came for the first time, apparently people were crying on the plane because they had to do like four or five laps.

[Luke Jones]

Oh, get a grip. No, really, she's come back out to the island to visit her growing list of clients. How many times would you say you've

[Ruth]

been here now, do you know? I was trying to work it out. I think this is either the eighth or the ninth trip. Yeah.

[Luke Jones]

I can't put my finger on, like, what it looks like. Oh, dead pigeon. I can't for another dead pigeon. Gosh, something's happened here, hasn't it?

[Ruth]

So just so you know, this is the mule yard, so this is that

[Luke Jones]

we're having a big fry at some point, so.

[Ruth]

No, I'll take you there in a minute. So this is like a venue. If people are having like a 50th birthday party or a wedding party, they have a band there under that awning.

[Luke Jones]

I saw a man plugging in speakers earlier.

[Ruth]

Yeah. Oh, maybe there's an event tonight,

[Luke Jones]

Another dead pigeon. I can't quite place, though, what it.

[Ruth]

What.

[Luke Jones]

What it looks like to describe it to somebody. Actually, one of your colleagues said whatever you think it is before you arrive, it's like. It's not that it's different, but it is. It could be a sort of small. It looks like places I've seen on Scottish islands. It looks like villages I've seen in the middle of mainland Africa. Some of it looks a bit ramshackled and make do amend. Some of it looks quite swish. The main street looks like it's from a Western.

[Ruth]

And when we were driving down, some of the houses looked like they're. They're in Ballymore, you know.

[Colby]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Luke Jones]

I can't get my head around it.

[Ruth]

So that is also a nightclub.

[Luke Jones]

A nightclub, yeah.

[Ruth]

So come and see if the club.

[Luke Jones]

As you walk around Jamestown, it seems like a normal, ish little seaside town. There's a couple of supermarkets, both former pubs, hence why one of them is called the Rose and Crown. I dip into an actual pub where youngish men and a couple of families are watching football. We saw so many Arsenal flags driving down here. One home had even recreated the Arsenal flag in their hedge. This is our hotel. The hotel I'm staying in is actually closed. The main and newer one down the way was full with Ruth and her team coming. But the woman who runs this place is letting us stay there. She lives in one of the rooms, an elderly bed, bound lady and another woman who cleans for her lets us in. As she says she knows where the keys are kept. This is the consulate hotel that we're staying in and don't know why I'm whispering. I'm all by myself and it's sort of late afternoon. It is a grand maximalist, old, slightly dusty but beautiful bar lounge that's here, but it's frozen in time. There's an old grand piano here. Still got it. Which looks like once entertained Lots and lots of people who would sit in all these plush sofas and armchairs here. But again, no one here, really. It was once very busy when there was a regular postage ship stopping here, but that stopped when the airport opened. The airport really hasn't brought many tourists, and so this place has slightly floundered, and we're staying here. We've given them some money, they're giving us some keys. Some other people have done that, it seems, but it's not really open. Our closed hotel is a testament, really, to the failed tourism renaissance they hoped the new airport would bring. But wherever I go, there is radiating out of everyone, despite all of the issues, just a great big love for the place. For the full spectacle of the island, you've got to head out on the water. Except for Jamestown and a few other spots, you see from the boat that the island is pretty much exclusively tall, steep cliffs with the odd lost goat or crumb cannon battlement dotted along. A young lad called Colby takes me out in his boat.

[Colby]

So we're just off Lyda Rock, which is our rock just here. That's Jamestown just down by there. And there's a whale shark, quite a friendly one, actually, just here in front of us.

[Luke Jones]

He took me to see whale sharks, one of the island's seasonal attractions. What an unfriendly whale shark.

[Colby]

So sometimes when you jump in, they're not too interested and they'll just dive. Right. Now, if you try and swim away, sometimes he'll chase you and it's like sabotage.

[Luke Jones]

And a whale shark is broadly. What size? Small family car?

[Colby]

Yeah, big family car, I would say. Yeah. So 10 meters, sometimes 12 meters. Yeah.

[Luke Jones]

Colby's just moved back home. You spent the last three years in Cornwall studying. How does it compare? Is this sort of Cornwall esque?

[Colby]

Oh, Cornwall's great, mate. But I tell you what, you can take the island for granted sometimes. Spend 18 years trying to get away. And when you go away, you realize how special this place is.

[Luke Jones]

What comes to mind? What do you think of?

[Colby]

Well, like yesterday afternoon, me and my friends, we took the boat out, went for a dive, saw devil raider, played with us for 20 minutes, came back, had some food. It's just the things that you are able to do.

[Luke Jones]

As the sun goes down, I. I leave the swimming fish and head to the smell of frying fish, the weekly fish fry at the yacht club. Just as I saw an elected councillor working the airport's immigration queue. Here, someone who works for the public solicitor's office is manning the bar. Outside is an Enormous pan frying local fish and another one doing chips. Oh, yes, please. Thank you. Can I ask you on here what it is?

[Ruth]

We have tuna. Unfortunately we may not.

[Luke Jones]

What's the difference between wahoo and tuna?

[Ruth]

So the wahoo is a white fish and tuna is a red fish.

[Luke Jones]

Look at the size of that pan.

[Ruth]

I mean, this is the yacht club. But the yacht club is only there for the alcohol, isn't it?

[Luke Jones]

Well, I'll take your word for it.

[Ruth]

It's there for people to have, you know, to have a drink and everything. And it started out with the fish fry.

[Luke Jones]

Amazingly, just like Colby on the boat. I meet so many saints who have sort of returned, been drawn back.

[Ruth]

My name is Cherry and I am a St. Helenian who's lived in the, in Britain for 43 years. I came in December 2024 just for probably a two month holiday and I'm still here.

[Luke Jones]

And you and the pull that keeps you here, how would you explain it?

[Ruth]

Family, the social. I have an amazing social life. I'm involved in most things in the, in the community.

[Luke Jones]

I meet another two in a very similar situation.

[Ruth]

When I first went to the uk, they thought I lived in a mud hut with goats and chickens. They believed that Spielberg that I gave them. So.

[Luke Jones]

So you've come out here as a holiday? As a what?

[Ruth]

I don't know, I. I'm just sort of here to see whether I want to live here for a bit longer or maybe do a bit of here, a bit there.

[Luke Jones]

Yes, that seems like quite a phenomenon. People leave and then there's something that, that drags them back.

[Ruth]

I think maybe when you're older, I think most people when you're older.

[Luke Jones]

Are you going to take that

[Ruth]

for me? I'm not precious about how old I am. No, but really, I think many of us who move abroad, no matter where in the world, I think there is a pull back to your childhood place.

[Luke Jones]

Some people were happy to chat, many weren't. Me and my microphone were getting a lot of strange looks.

[Ruth]

I will probably walk up there and said, why were you talking to that guy?

[Luke Jones]

Is it a gossipy place? Is it that gossipy?

[Ruth]

So gossipy. I am going to gossip about you now.

[Luke Jones]

It is incredibly gossipy. Everyone immediately seems to know why I'm there. I even had one guy email me before I'd landed saying, oh, I hear you're coming over here. You should meet so and so. Maybe that's why a lot of people refuse to actually talk. There's a distrust of solicitor Ruth and her team out Here as well, in some quarters, when the heavens open on the fish fry. One government employee, a foreign professional import, shouts at the all female team. Run, Witchers, you're going to melt. Thankfully, though, there are many islanders happy to talk about what's been going on. I couldn't believe that the stories about Dr. Sergio were about to get even worse. Just as Bernard and Sandra a few years earlier had been lining up Sergio victims to interview for their investigation, Ruth and her team were now doing the same. I joined her for some, including one woman who, for reasons that'll become clear, doesn't want us to use her name or voice.

[Ruth]

I've got a vivid memory of coming to see you in your home because, you know, we'd said that we were interested in anybody who had concerns about the treatment that they'd received from Sergio.

[Luke Jones]

We're sitting around a small table in the courtyard bar cafe of Ruth's hotel, the only proper hotel, really on the island. This woman contacted Ruth because of the treatment, or I guess, lack of it, that she got for her hands. She's constantly rubbing them as she sits anxiously with us.

[Ruth]

And then she started telling me about this and just everything else stopped. And it just fills me with repulsion and outrage that he came here and he felt like he could do whatever he wanted to do to whoever he wanted to and there was going to be no comeback.

[Luke Jones]

A warning. Her story concerns sexual assault, so you or someone listening might not want to hear this. The woman told us what happened to her very quickly, nervously rushing through it. Now in middle age, she was wary of men, she said, because of a rape when she was just 12 years old. So as a result, understandably, she says she's very aware of how men interact with her, how they touch or approach her. But you trust a doctor, she said. She described going to see Dr. Sergio because of a painful medical condition. It was giving her hell. There'd been a lot of talk about this new doctor coming. It was a big thing, she said. So she finally went to go and see him. I couldn't take the pain, she tells me, in his office. She sat down and explained her problem. I was just wondering if you can do something about it, she asked. He slid his chair over and sat right in front of her and started rubbing her hands. She remembers he asked if he could show her something confusingly, and got up and shut the curtains. At this point, she thought he was going to examine her, show her how the issue might be affecting her elsewhere. But it was when he locked the door, she said that Quote, I knew it was wrong. He walked over, she was frozen, sitting in her chair, and he pulled down his trousers and underwear. She says it was abnormal, like a sea monster. She explained, remembering specifically he had a certain style of briefs on. All the while she was rushing through this story, not wanting to linger on the details. She tells me, it looked so ugly. I was just sitting there and he was stroking it and asked me if I wanted to touch it. And I said, no, no, I don't want to. She got up. I have to go, she said to Sergio, I got to pick my daughter up. And she made for the door. Her hand got to the lock, she said, but he put his hand on the door, blocking it. Thinking about all she's been through in the past, she said to me, she kept saying to herself, don't shout, don't shout, don't shout. I want to see you, she remembers Sergio saying, trying to brush it all off, she replied, I'll see you one night at Donny's, that St. Helena's nightclub down by the harbour where I'd been with Ruth. With that promise, he let her through the door and she bundled out, getting back into a car where her daughter was waiting and wondering and asking her what was up. I can see it on your face, her daughter asked. I was like, no, no, no, no, the woman tells me. But eventually, after persistent questioning, she did tell her daughter what happened. She told her mother too, and also went to see Catherine. Remember who runs the Human Rights Commission on Ireland? Catherine said, go to the police, report it, Report him. Should she? This is a small island where we've already heard people don't want to kick up a fuss, don't want to complain for fear of where it'll get them. And this woman too said she already had a taste of what could happen. She told me she had a previous run in with the hospital. An awful case she describes, where she was suffering with heavy bleeding and it later transpired she'd had a miscarriage. The hospital performed a post miscarriage procedure to try and remove any tissue remaining in the womb, but as this woman explained, it left half a baby in there. This led to complications, more surgery. She thought about taking legal action, but in the end decided against it. It just kills your morale, she tells me. Made her angry too. But she explained, I've had to learn to let things go to a certain extent. When it came to Sergio, though, and when it was police officer Sandra visiting the island who was asking her about what happened to her, the woman decided

[Sandra]

to explain all I Think, going back historically, there had been some sort of investigation, and she felt that time things weren't dealt with as people perhaps think would have been. So, yes. So she gave me her account.

[Luke Jones]

She told Sandra how she didn't trust male doctors or nurses anymore, how it made her frightened, how it stopped her getting her condition looked at for ages, until finally a doctor off the island had a look and told her it was the worst case they'd ever seen. They even took photos, she said, so they could show their students. His abuse not only traumatized her, but stopped her getting the medical attention she needed. Made her frightened to ask for it again. The woman also explained how she did see Sergio again at the nightclub on the island, Donny's. I'd forgotten about saying I'd see him there, she says, not forgotten. I just didn't think about it. I said it so I could get away. She describes him looming behind her as she was having drinks, talking to her friends. He came up behind her and rubbed himself on her, she told me. I thought, oh, my God. So I turned around and he looked me straight in the face, and I was like, what the hell? He then licked all up her face. This is the lauded surgeon. The person on Ireland paid lots and lots of money to look after this small and isolated population.

[Sandra]

So when you take any allegation of a sexual offense, you have to be quite specific. You have to have descriptions. You have to dig down into what was seen. Exactly. And so she did give a description of his penis, of which at the time was quite distinctive. And when we went back and looked into the reasons why it could be as distinct as she described, we then started to wonder whether the use of Botox in male genitalia was a thing, because none of us had heard of it. So we did look into it, and we found that people do administer it to give their genitalia an enhanced look or for whatever reason. And we did wonder, well, perhaps that's what had happened, because he had, whilst he was on suspension, stolen Botox from

[Luke Jones]

the pharmacy, which sort of explains that. But as part of that, she had a sort of clear description of what his genitals looked like. And she had a distinctive memory about his underwear as well. And she also immediately told it to a relative after it happened, which, to my mind, seems like quite a decent case if you were to present that to a court. Is that what you thought when you heard that? Yes.

[Sandra]

Yes, we did. And the senior investigation officer sought a corroborative. We had two corroborating statements, one from the person that you'd mentioned that she first told the incident to. And we felt that the response was exactly as you'd expect. So we had no qualms about the validity of her statement. And we also took a statement from another witness to not to that incident but certainly corroborated what she had said about his genitalia. So when we left the island we believed that those charges had been laid.

[Luke Jones]

The criminal charges as we heard last time, when Bernard and Sandra's stint on the island finished, they were worried about what their investigation would actually amount to in the end. In June 2023 Sergio appeared via video link at St. Helena's courthouse for a hearing. It was publicly revealed he was facing seven charges. Seven. Two were for sexual assault. But when it came to this hearing the prosecution said they wouldn't be entering any evidence to support the sexual assault charges so they were dropped. That left five charges for unlawful wounding.

[Ruth]

My understanding is that having reviewed lots of cases, five were selected because it was clear that they would be able to bring a successful criminal prosecution to those five charges.

[Luke Jones]

He pleaded guilty. Vince ran a big picture of Dr. Sergio across the front of the sent Helena independent. Well, it was openly said at the time that it was a sample. They knew there was more but they'd had enough to hook him with the five that they had to make her a successful criminal case against him. Vince wrote in his editorial somewhat obliquely quote several docs have been the subject of general conversation over the years but it is likely more words have been spoken about Dr. Sergio than any other. The two counts of sexual offending which were not proceeded with were not considered to be minor offenses according to information received. Unfortunately, he says we can only speculate why this criminal doctor did not have to defend himself against these charges. The five charges were the clearest cut. It seems they were cases of patients who had consented to one kind of surgery in writing and then he had very clearly done something different. Catherine's daughter in law was one of

[Sandra]

the cases we could reasonably have expected more charges. Yes. If that percentage of the population had been injured in the uk the government would have fallen, newspapers would have been going berserk. There would have been outrage and here it was pushed under the carpet.

[Bernard]

I felt a sense of frustration.

[Luke Jones]

Bernard had helped investigate all of this,

[Bernard]

remember real frustration that if we had been given the cooperation that we'd hoped for, I believe we could have made a referral to for consideration of a lot more of the cases. I mean the indictment that he faced bears no real reflection of the magnitude of the offences that he should have, in my humble opinion, and that is in no small part due to the obstacles that were put in the way of the investigation in actually putting that in front of the Crown Prosecution Service for them to make an informed decision about charges.

[Luke Jones]

Solicitor Roof was now on the case.

[Ruth]

So he then pleads guilty to these charges and the sentencing was set for September 22, 2023. And we were all thinking, why on earth would he come back to St Helena to be sentenced when actually these are serious offences that carry custodial penalties.

[Luke Jones]

Remember, Sergio is now back in Guatemala, having fled. But as I have quickly learned when reporting on this small, remote British island, whatever you think is going to happen next doesn't.

[Sandra]

I was absolutely staggered when I heard he was coming back. To be honest, we did not expect he'd ever set foot back on the island. I don't know whether he was just so arrogant he thought he'd get away with it. I have no clue why he came back.

[Luke Jones]

That's next time on the surgeon of St. Helena. Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran did not respond to our many requests for comment and the St Helena government who run the hospital also declined to comment. If you want to listen to more of this show early and ad free, search for Always True Crime on Patreon, where you'll find pictures from my time on the island as well. Or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. The surgeon of St. Helena is an Audio Always production. It's written and hosted by me, Luke Jones, the producer. Producer is Louisa Adams, Ailsa Rochester is executive producer and sound design is by Craig Edmondson.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Want more True Crime? This podcast and loads more are part of the Always True Crime Network. It's packed with box sets to binge and twisted tales you won't find anywhere else. Find your next podcast obsession@always truecrime.com.