The Bone Man

Summary

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The Pitcairn Trials – “The Bone Man”

Podcast: The Pitcairn Trials
Host: Luke Jones (Always True Crime)
Episode: The Bone Man
Date: June 27, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Pitcairn Trials delves into a shocking medical scandal on the remote British island of St. Helena. The story unravels how an outwardly credentialed surgeon, Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran, performed a disturbing number of questionable surgeries, harming scores of residents in a tiny, trusting community. The host, Luke Jones, interviews retired detective Bernard McCabe and his wife Sandra (also a retired police officer), alongside local Human Rights Commission leader Catherine, to reconstruct how institutional failures, administrative cover-ups, and cultural isolation let the so-called "Bone Man" operate unchecked for years. The episode paints a vivid picture of life on St. Helena while investigating how the lines blurred between incompetence and criminality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Isolation and Opportunity (02:32—11:51)

• St. Helena’s Uniqueness:
  • A remote, volcanic British territory, population 4,000, accessible mainly by infrequent flights due to challenging geography (07:34).
  • An island accustomed to being overlooked, but tightly knit (“You could pop them all in London’s Royal Albert Hall and still have about 1200 seats going spare.” – Luke Jones, 07:34).
• Arriving Detectives:
  • Bernard and Sandra McCabe describe being recruited to help investigate an emerging scandal at Jamestown Hospital (06:37).
  • Their experiences emphasize the strangeness and beauty of St. Helena, their enforced COVID quarantines, and initial impressions of the local community (09:41–14:55).

2. The Arrival of Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran: Hopes and Early Suspicions (17:26—26:13)

• A Promising Background:
  • Sergio hailed from Guatemala, with claims of international training. Hired to remedy the island's limited access to orthopaedic care (17:26).
  • “It’s a great opportunity for me to be able to provide and keep providing this service to the population of St. Helena.” – Sergio in government press (18:30)
• Mixed Impressions:
  • “At that time, I thought he knew, you know, he came across as a person who knew what they were talking about.” – Sandra McCabe, (19:32)
  • On a social level, Catherine recounts rumors and discomfort about Sergio’s self-aggrandizing behavior, his ostentatious dress, and his showmanship.
  • “He was known as the Bone Man, and not just because he did operations on people’s bones. He wore Lycra all the time and it was fairly obvious, and quite embarrassing, what he was trying to show off.” – Catherine, (24:04)

3. Early Warning Signs and Patient Harm (24:31—27:53)

• Disregard for Patient Communication & Consent:
  • Catherine’s daughter-in-law suffered major bungling in what should have been a minor keyhole surgery, resulting in lasting injury.
  • “He would not answer questions. He didn't give you an opportunity to ask questions.” – Catherine, (24:50)
  • Additional complaints poured in, but the hospital hierarchy repeatedly dismissed or deflected concerns (26:29).
• Suppressing Internal Concern:
  • Physiotherapists noticed a lack of proper pre-surgery referrals and were told to avoid questioning Sergio's methods.
  • "They were actively being put off.” – Bernard McCabe, (27:13)

4. Escalation: Investigations and Dr. Sergio’s Downfall (27:53—31:23)

• Suspension and Botched Discipline:
  • Sergio is suspended after accumulating years of complaints. Shortly after, he’s caught obtaining Botox under false pretenses, leading to a criminal conviction for deception (27:53–29:14).
  • Despite being fined, Sergio is still not fully removed and continues to cause suspicion.
• Damning Professional Review:
  • UK surgical expert’s report: “Sergio’s results were suboptimal…poor diagnostic skills…lacking.” (29:39)
  • “No, this is quite fairly and squarely in the realms of criminality and you need to immediately inform the police.” —UK Consultant, as paraphrased by Bernard (30:02)
• Detectives Step In:
  • Bernard and Sandra are tasked with gathering statements from 40–50 potentially harmed patients. Their findings grow steadily more alarming (30:53–33:24).
  • “There was an outline off the top of my head, I think it was somewhere between 40 and 50 individuals…” – Bernard, (30:53)

5. Chilling Anecdotes and Systemic Failures (31:23—34:47)

• Medical “Cowboy” Behaviour:
  • Sergio planned on cutting open a child’s foot just to figure out the screwdriver type needed, showing disregard for patient safety (31:35).
  • Disturbing example of a patient’s severed fingers: Sergio claimed it was too late to reattach, but a photo later emerged contradicting his story. "He was just one of the strange things that happened...Sergio appeared to have a God complex." – Bernard, (32:46)
• Inexplicable Institutional Lapses:
  • “He was there for five years. So I find it actually incredible that nobody saw fit to actually have some sort of balance and checks…It begs belief from my point of view.” – Bernard, (33:00)
  • The community struggled to accept wrongdoing, with some believing the investigators were conducting a "witch hunt."
  • “If this was in the UK, people would be in uproar about it and they would want action taken. But over there… the victims all felt that... whatever Sergio had advised them and whatever he’d said to them, it must be right.” —Sandra (33:24)

6. Scope of Harm & Aftermath (34:22—35:18)

• Staggering Numbers:
  • Sergio is estimated to have operated on 600 out of 4,000 residents—about 15% of the population (34:22).
  • For context: in England about 1% of the population per year undergo orthopaedic surgery.
• Legal/Procedural Response:
  • After finally being questioned under arrest, Sergio invokes his right to silence and soon after, plans to flee:
    • “He’s booked on a flight to go tomorrow. If anyone interferes with him getting on that flight, there will be repercussions.” —Bernard (35:10)
• Institutional Silence:
  • Sergio did not respond to requests for comment; the St. Helena government also refused comment (35:18).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you sold somebody a loaded gun who you knew was in a vulnerable state and they shot themselves, I think it is murder.” —Bernard McCabe, (02:25, repeated 37:17)
• “I feel that we’re so obviously right, and this situation is so obviously wrong. We’ll either win this or I’ll die trying.” —Sandra McCabe & Catherine, (03:20)
• “He wore Lycra all the time and it was fairly obvious and quite embarrassing what he was trying to show off.” —Catherine, (24:04)
• “It was, we were all both upset and angry... also disappointed and angry with the fact that there were so many people that felt what we were doing was almost a witch hunt.” —Sandra McCabe, (33:24)
• “Should 15% of the population having orthopaedic surgery in a short amount of time not have raised alarm bells?” —Luke Jones, (34:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:37] – Bernard describes the call to investigate the St. Helena hospital scandal.
• [14:21] – Arrival and COVID quarantine on St. Helena.
• [17:26] – Introduction to Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran.
• [24:04] – Catherine on Dr. Sergio’s “Bone Man” reputation.
• [24:50] – Catherine recounts her daughter-in-law’s botched surgery.
• [27:09] – Bernard details hospital staff being told not to question Sergio.
• [29:39] – UK surgical consultant’s damning assessment of Sergio.
• [30:53] – Bernard and Sandra begin patient interviews.
• [31:35] – Chilling story: child’s operation.
• [32:14] – The “fingers photo” that didn’t add up.
• [33:00] – Bernard on years of unchecked abuse.
• [34:22] – Scale of surgeries and population stats.
• [35:10] – Sergio prepares to leave the island.

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Conclusion

This episode exposes the fragility of oversight in isolated communities and the ease with which a “professional” can inflict lasting harm when institutions fail. Through interviews, damning anecdotes, and a sense of mounting outrage, listeners are left questioning how many more isolated cases like St. Helena (and Pitcairn before it) might exist, hidden from view. The episode ends with a cliffhanger: Sergio is about to leave, and unresolved questions about responsibility and justice linger—setting up the story’s continuation.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host (Always True Crime Network Announcer)]

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[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

If you sold somebody a loaded gun who you knew was in a vulnerable state and they shot themselves, I think it is murder.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Just because you're using the Internet doesn't mean you get away with murder. I'm Damon Fairless, host of Hunting Warhead. This season I take you inside the business of suicide and the places desperate people go when they can't find what they need in the real world. Hunting the Suicide salesman available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, They did the damage to him, you know, and make our life more harder than it used to be. My first thought was, well how did he get away with it for so long?

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

I feel that we're so obviously right

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

and this situation is so obviously wrong.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

We'll either win this or I'll die trying.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

The first series in this feed was called the Pitcairn Trials. It was all about a very, very small, very, very remote British island in the South Pacific called Pitcairn. We told the story of a police officer who went out there in the late 90s and slowly uncovered widespread child sexual abuse. It was a scandal and a crisis and a series of very tricky criminal prosecutions that brought the island right to the edge of extinction. But that is a scandal very much in the past. In the wake of releasing that series, though, lots of people got in touch with me, with their own experiences, other stories about other communities. One particular email really struck me, though. I remember the subject line, more outrageous scandal. An email read, Dear Luke, I listened with an ever increasing sense of familiarity and horror to your podcast, the Pitcairn Trials. I'm sorry to say that I know another story of extremely familiar themes that are occurring as I write on another British overseas territory, which similarly and very unfortunately has its roots and cause firmly founded in a shameful past and a coercive present. Well, my thoughts that needs investigating. On Pit Ken, the problem was homegrown.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

He just struck me as a kind

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

of Walter Mitty character. This story revolves around a stranger who tips up on a remote old volcano of an island. I thought he was okay. Yeah, he's not professional. Yes, he's not yet Carnaby, but you

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

know what he's doing.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

A very trusting, isolated community accepts him, but ends up seriously harmed.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

If this was in the uk, people would be in uproar about it and they would want action taken.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

But over there and how the mess is handled really shocked me. From audio always and me. Luke Jones. This is the surgeon of St. Helena.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

I'm Bernard McCabe. I'm a retired detective, formerly for the Metropolitan police.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

I'm Sandra McCabe, his wife. I was a Metropolitan Police officer, retired many years ago from that and now living in Essex.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

When was it you were both in St. Helena?

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

It was in November 2021, until about March 2022. I was aware that a former colleague of mine from the Met had taken a career break and had gone out there to work as a police officer.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

This is increasingly my journalistic niche. English coppers getting calls out of the blue about far flung islands in need of some investigative heft. If, that is, you do get in touch.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

So I knew he was out there, but I'd had no contact with him for the period that he'd been out there to start with. And then he made contact with me in October of 2021, out the blue. Just a phone call out of the blue, saying, oh, how are you? How's things going? What are you up to? I said, yeah, just ticking along. And he said, oh, I know this sounds strange, can I run something by you? So he said that there'd been this investigation, as it were, had come to light from the General Hospital, Jamestown Hospital.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Jamestown is the capital city and it is a city, albeit very small, of St Helena. Like Pitcairn, St Helena is British soil and its people are British citizens.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

I was aware of it only because that's where, to my knowledge, they'd sent Napoleon in exile and he died there. And that was the extent of it geographically. I wouldn't have had no idea where it was at all. So that was the sum total of my knowledge.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Get yourself a map, find the South Atlantic and pop your finger right in the middle. That is broadly where St. Helena is. Pitcairn is teeny tiny. St. Helena maybe would class as just very small. It is twice the size of Manhattan island in New York City, but with a population of around just 4,000. So you could pop them all in London's Royal Albert hall and still have about 1200 seats going spare as you

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

actually come into land. It's a bit like a lunar landscape.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

It is remote as well. The nearest mainland is Angola, 1200 miles away to the east. Or you could head 800 miles to the north to the nearest other island, Ascension, which is also British for its worth, but more on that later. But why is this Atlantic lump of dried dead volcano actually British? Because of the East India Company, the world's first global corporate superpower. A brutal and rapacious force which had its own navy, army and British Royal Seal of approval. In the 17th century, before the Suez Canal opened, St. Helena was a very useful stopping off point for their ships. But the East India Company is no more, with Amazon prime now. And St. Helena is a fragment of empire, a tropical British overseas territory still ultimately controlled by drizzly London. Back in 2021, what was it that had dragged Bernard and Sandra out of retirement?

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

The local police, being very small in number, didn't have the resources to take on that investigation. And therefore, would I be interested in perhaps going out to assist in taking statements from potential victims?

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Bernard said he'd be up for it.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

But, Sandra, the day that Bernie took the call, he was out on his own. And he came home to say, I've had this call. And it was like, what? Where?

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

It would be four months away from home and crucially would mean missing the first post. Covid Christmas they'd be able to have with all their kids back together.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

So we had to message and say, there's this opportunity. What's your thoughts? And of course they all said, oh, no, you've got to. You gotta go for it.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

You know, screw Christmas. They're off to the tropics.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

We checked what the weather was like and read that it was a sort of subtropical, so it should be warmish.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Now, normally the flights would take you via Johannesburg and Namibia, but because of COVID flights were working a little differently. Bernard and Sandra went from Stansted, perfect close to where they live, six hours south to. To Accra, Ghana. Then after a refuel, they had another three hours over the vast, almost empty expanse of the Atlantic to St. Helena. You know what you were thinking on that flight?

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

It was just like, is this real? I think at that point we were still sort of in a bit of a daze, thinking, hold on a minute, two weeks ago, we were just bimbling along doing Covid work locally, and now we're on a flight to some island that we've looked up now and realize it's only something like seven miles long in the South Atlantic to do some work that sounds very interesting, but still unsure of what to expect.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

The island might be green and pleasant inland, but around its steep and jagged edges, it is so clear that it is essentially an old volcano.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

So certainly as we came in, we were thinking, wow, it's sort of. It looked like a moonscape and you thought there was no civilization there. And it's quite. I think it's a short Runway, isn't it? Because I know they have problems with. Sometimes with the wind. They have to allow a certain amount of time of fuel for them to fly back if they can't land, because it's certain conditions and certain planes and certain pilots that can only land there.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Now, the airport Bernard and Sandra land on is relatively new. Previously, the only way on or off the island was catching the royal mail ship, the RMS St. Helena. Every three weeks or so, it would arrive at the island having sailed for five, five days from Cape Town. But in 2015, after many, many years of consultations, design of shifting off big hunks of volcanic rock and shipping in concrete and steel and cranes and diggers and 300 million of Britain's finest pounds, they got a small but very Smart looking international airport ready to connect the 4,000 people of St. Helena with the 8 billion people everywhere else? Well, I say ready. When the fresh and eye wateringly expensive Runway came to be tested in 2016, they realised that what with the Runway running along the edge of a steep cliff and what with the Atlantic being windy, the wind would often hit the cliff, roll up and over the side of the Runway, therefore making it incredibly difficult to actually land a plane. The first try, a British Airways test flight, took three goes before they managed to get the damn thing down. As the UK's National Audit Office would later point out, Charles Darwin noted the strong winds in the late 19th century. So how was it a surprise to the authorities in the early 21st century, the commercial operator who was going to run flights pulled out. So more money and more time was thrown at the problem. And basically the expensive upshot is that planes can now land, but not big ones, all the way from the uk. And the planes that do come have to stop off just before finally heading out across the Atlantic to St. Helena. Because if they get there and find they can't land, which they often can't because of the wind, they need enough fuel to turn around and get all the way back to the nearest mainland Africa. When Bernard and Sandra were successfully landing on St Helena, it was still that time when Covid was playing absolute hell with flights and travel. And if you're Saint Helena, a small island of 4,000 people cut off from the world with plenty of old and vulnerable people who need protecting, Covid was a big worry.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

We were getting off the plane and they were all in what I would describe as sort of the forensic suit that I would have.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Like a Hazmat suit?

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Well, yeah, yeah. Masks the whole lot. So, you know, it was very disciplined. Please go this way, go that way. Don't do this, don't do that. And so we were putting on a minibus and we were taken to the military. I'm trying to think of the name of the camp. Didn't we go there on the way before?

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

Yeah, because we had to be tested, didn't we? I forgot that. Yeah. So it's just near the airport.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They were tested for Covid, passed thankfully and were packed off in a minibus.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

Once you'd driven out from the airport through the island, the, the landscape changed totally and you're through lush vegetation and it was much more tropical and it was, and, and again it was all the, the deep valleys and everything that had no idea that what it would be like. So it was yeah, it was very interesting, the drive through.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They had to isolate for 10 days in a small house called the Old Schoolhouse. Meals were dropped on their doorstep and they were checked on so they would

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

ring us once a day and we had to present ourselves at the front door for a visit so that they could physically see us every day for 10 days.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

And also we had. It was all taped off. It was quite. We had to send pictures back to the kids, obviously, because it was quarantine and no leaving.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They didn't have television. They did have Internet, but it was too slow to really stream anything. All they had was board games and the radio

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

so we could listen to South Atlantic broadcasts and learn about the potato crop in ancient islands and things like that.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Some of the topics that were brought up on the 6 o' clock news were things like, Sandra says the potato crop is due to be good. And then we also learned, probably not in the 10 days, but over the period we were there, that the. The ship coming in from Cape Town was a big event on the island because it brought in fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, more food, and. And that would be announced as well.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Jamestown, which was created as a city by Queen Victoria, does not look like a city picture. Instead a bare rocky valley with steep sides and a strip of town running all the way along the bottom. The high street has rows of pastel colored facades, some with balconies and metal balustrades. One of them has a small statue of Napoleon looking out. The island's most famous visitor. Before I went, obviously there's the castle where government is based and a big courthouse.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

We had to go to the courthouse and be sworn in as detective constables in the St Helena Police Force and get our warrant cards. That was done by the chief magistrate, Mr. Cook. Yeah, so that was a bit weird. We did have to pose outside by the cannons with our warrant cards.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Yeah.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

For a photo.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Yeah, for our own memory purposes, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't sort of an official one.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They were there to investigate what had been happening up the road at Jamestown's hospital a few years earlier in 2016. So just as the new airport was having a mare, the hospital excitedly welcomed a new surgeon, Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran. He'd already visited a couple of times from his native Guatemala to do some stints as an orthopedic surgeon, something he trained for, he said, in Guatemala, but also in the United States. He's one of those people who posts photographs on his Instagram with framed medical qualifications looming on the wall behind him. In one of them, you can see, sitting at a desk, white doctor's coat on, his name stitched into the breast pocket. And you see his small, tanned, shiny, bald head and the kind of sharp, defined eyes that look naturally eyelinered. Now, if the lab coat and the Guatemala medical certificates didn't scream doctor enough, he's also got a collection of knee joint models on the desk in front of him as well. He came to the island to join a fellow Guatemalan, doctor, Carlos Soto, St Helena's chief medical officer. They were thought to be friends. And in the long, breathless press release announcing Sergio's arrival, he's quoted as saying, I shan't do the accent. It's very important to have an orthopaedic surgeon on St Helena as I'm able to treat patients now rather than have them wait a long time to be sent to South Africa for necessary procedures. On his previous visits to the island, a press release said he'd already done 572 consultations, 66 surgeries. He said, it's a great opportunity for me to be able to provide and keep providing this service to the population of St. Helena, adding, quote, I've been able to restore the quality of life for some patients and I'm honoured to be able to get to know the island more. The government said he'd be on trauma call 24 7, do four surgeries a week, see 16 patients a day, which all sounds promising. What did you make of him? Sergio?

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

At that time, I thought he knew, you know, he came across as a person who knew what they were talking about.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

But the superstar surgeon wasn't charming everyone.

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[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

My impression of him was that he was it was very brusque.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Catherine has lived on St. Helena for more than 20 years.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

We came out on a three year contract, totally and utterly fell in love with the I mean, it's a stunningly beautiful place, but also it's a very safe place.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Catherine, her husband and her two young children swapped Hertfordshire for St Helena because she said they were sick of crime and English commutes.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

When we first came, we lived right out at the far side of the island, as far away from town as you can get. It was a 20 minute drive.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

She enjoyed it so much. The family have barely left.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

My husband and my youngest son haven't been off the island since 2006. My last time off was 2016. It is beautiful. I mean, it's a stunningly beautiful place. The people are as friendly as everybody says. It is. The most wonderful place to live if everything's going okay.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Catherine runs the Human Rights Commission on the island, so was very used to kicking up a fuss if needs be, and she soon crossed paths with Dr. Sir GM.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

I knew him more socially and even then not that well, but he was like that socially as well. He was here with somebody that he always referred to as his wife. Lovely lady, knew her better than him. And it was only after they went away on holiday and she didn't come back did it become apparent she wasn't his wife. He was a bit of a show off.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

In what way? A show off?

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

Yeah, I'm going to I ended up

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

hearing this story from so many people on St. Helena. None of them wanted to say it, but all of them did he was

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

known as the Bone man and not just because he did operations on people's bones. He wore Lycra all the time and it was fairly obvious and quite embarrassing

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

what he was trying to show off.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

Yes, yeah.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Which is sort. Which is grim.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

It is. I mean, it's not nice for anybody.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Some told us he was known as the Bone man, others have said he was known as the Anaconda. All describe a man who was in love with himself and who showed himself off to an uncomfortable degree.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

He was just very much in your face, I think, if I can put it like that.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

And Catherine was not impressed with him, which isn't something that matters too much. Until that is, her daughter in law ends up being one of his patients.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

She's a very sporty girl, she's from Botswana, she swam for Botswana. She played hockey at national level for Botswana as well.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

She went in for a keyhole knee operation.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

He would not answer questions. He didn't give you an opportunity to ask questions.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

The surgery was, in the grand scheme of things, quite routine, a tweak to the knee to keep her as active as she's always been. But when she came round it was immediately clear something was up.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

When she woke up, she phoned me because I was at work sobbing down the phone that she got huge amounts of stitches and, and she didn't understand what had gone on and she couldn't work out. I thought maybe she'd had a reaction to the anesthetic but I went up anyway because obviously she needed somebody with

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

her and for a keyhole surgery you'd be expecting like just a one little sort of.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

Yeah, little, little cross stitch. Then when she, she removed the bandage because she couldn't understand why she got such a huge bandage on and why she was in so much pain. And when we look, she had two huge scars down her knee with loads

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

of stitches in her sporty, athletic, swimming, yoga teaching daughter in law now falls down the stairs because her knee gives way. She struggles to do work.

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

She can no longer teach the higher strength, more impactful yoga. It just isn't physically possible for her to keep getting up and down, which I can understand at my age, but not at her.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Was her daughter in law a one off, an anomaly or as Catherine suspected, very much not. Amongst all the human rights advocacy she was doing, she started to get a lot of people worried about Dr. Sergio,

[Catherine (Human Rights Commission on St. Helena)]

so that was that. And then we started getting more and more people coming in saying that they were concerned because they weren't getting any better. We helped them write complaints, but nobody was listening and nobody was responding. And they were all saying, oh, we've looked at the notes, everything was done properly.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

She felt like she was getting nowhere. But behind the scenes, other people as well were also trying to raise big red flags and blow whistles about Dr. Sergio.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

They weren't getting pre invasive referrals, so Sergio was just getting on with doing the invasive surgery.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Bernard tells me a physiotherapist at the hospital was particularly concerned.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

They knew that, percentage wise, there should be referrals coming before invasive surgery and they weren't getting them. And then when they were looking into it, they were basically told, don't put your nose in. Sergio's in charge, he knows what he's doing. And they were actively being put off.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

He remembers talking to one member of hospital staff who said that they would raise a concern internally, but we were

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

then actively told, don't be using that method because it's causing too many problems. So effectively, the senior management didn't want to be told that Sergio was a problem.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

Somewhere along the line, that must have been the initial trigger, that people then started to think, is there something we've got to look at?

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

The hospital higher ups finally listened and suspended Dr. Sergio from the hospital in early February. This is 2021, so five years into his residential stint. Documents from the time say, quote, serious concerns had been raised about his working practices, which is what you call an understatement. But even though he was suspended, Sergio headed back to the hospital. One day. He was at the drug dispensary, sidled up to a junior member of staff and asked them to give him a 100 milliliter vial of Botox. He said it was a prescription for a patient, but that was a lie. He made it out of the hospital with the Botox, but didn't go unnoticed. Ironically, for Botox, the incident raised quite a few eyebrows and the police got involved. He was eventually charged with obtaining property by deception, pleaded guilty and was fined 2,100 pounds. He told the court that it was for a sports injury to his thigh, but if that was true, why not just go and get it prescribed? Sandra, in particular, wondered what the bone man was up to.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

When we discussed it, thought, if it was for that reason, why would you need to steal it? But if you're using it for a more.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Yes, off Len.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

Off lens. Yes. Yes. Perhaps that's why.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

So Sergio was suspended and disgraced and finally a disciplinary panel was convened to look at some of his work.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

They decided that they would select 15, 17, whatever it was, cases that Sergio dealt with. Anonymize them, put them in front of him and say, right, can you tell us what your. What your rationale was?

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

A consultant from the UK was beamed into the meeting to add a professional surgical ear to what was going on. I managed to get a bit of a report that was compiled into this and the language is formal, but it's quite damning. Sergio's results were suboptimal. It said, poorly trained, poor diagnostic skills, interpretation of symptoms, inconsistent examination skills lacking.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

The consultant from the UK basically said, no, you are way past, way, way, way past this just being too keen to operate or. Or perhaps on the odd occasion, he's gone a little bit beyond, you know, when you're talking about consent. No, this is quite fairly and squarely in the realms of criminality and you need to immediately inform the police.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

This was not a few mishaps. Something had happened here that went beyond someone just not being as good as they should be at their job. The hospital was a crime scene. People had been criminally wronged, which is where, fresh from isolation, Bernard and Sandra stepped in. So when you were free and then your immediate task was, what, here's just a load of possible cases, can you just go and take statements from them all? Is that what you had to do?

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Yes, effectively, yes. So that there was. There was an outline off the top of my head. I think it was somewhere between 40 and 50 individuals that the scoping exercise had identified as those that would be of interest to get detailed statements from.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Bernard and Sandra weren't the first police to be called in. They were the second batch to help with this growing caseload. Their starting point was around 50 patients to interview. And it was immediately clear that Sergio was less a professional surgeon, more a cowboy builder.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

And one of the youngest, I think, was a young child of about six or eight that Sergio had conducted some sort of operation on the foot.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They needed surgery to adjust a metal plate that had previously been put in their foot.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

Sergio was, I've just got to do a quick evasive procedure.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

This was ahead of the actual surgery, thankfully. The mum was like, sorry, what do you need to do?

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

I said, oh, I've just got to check whether I need a Phillips or a flat screwdriver to remove the screws. He wanted to cut the patient's foot just to check what the actual screwdriver, he needed to remove it.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

They also went through his phone.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

We happened to come across a photograph where there was a hand posed on a surface with little fingers. Lined up along the top edge of the hand.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

The patient had lost the tips of his fingers in an accident, Dr. Sergio said it was too late to reattach them, so had thrown them in the bin, which meant this photo didn't add up. They showed this to the owner of

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

the hand and he said, that's my hand, my fingers. How is that in a photograph? When he threw them in the bin before I had the operation, again, it

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

was just one of the strange things that happened. And you think, well, this, I mean, I ended up with. My opinion was that Sergio appeared to have a God complex.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

It was becoming clearer and clearer that there was a possibility that this man wasn't just incompetent. Could it actually be that he knew he was hurting people and maybe just didn't care? Bernard and Sandra were baffled and horrified.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

If it was over a very short period of time, you think, well, perhaps someone, a supervisor or someone in a senior position hadn't had the opportunity to intervene. But he was there for five years. So I find it actually incredible that nobody saw fit to actually have some sort of balance and checks and, you know, a periodic review of his work and just let him run. It begs belief from my point of view.

[Sandra McCabe (Retired Police Officer, Bernard's Wife)]

We would come back into the office having been outtaken statements, and we'd then have debrief with our sio. He'd read our statements and each day we'd say, I can't believe this. And each day we'd come back and we'd have another one where we think, this is worse. And it was, it was. We were all both upset and angry and we were also disappointed and angry with the fact that there were so many people that felt what we were doing was almost a witch hunt. If this was in the UK and this was happening in a hospital in your county or in your area, people would be in uproar about it and they would want action taken. But over there, and also the victims all felt that, oh, they just. Whatever Sergio had advised them and whatever he'd said to them, it must be right.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Remember, this is an island of 4,000 people and it's been estimated that Sergio operated on 600 of them. Should 15% of the population having orthopaedic surgery in a short amount of time not have raised alarm bells In England? It's an estimated 1% of the population who have some kind of orthopaedic surgery each year. So 5%. If you extrapolate over Sergio's five years,

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

when the investigation started and the statements had been obtained and a decision was taken that he needed to be arrested and provide an account.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Sergio was arrested and questioned. He replied no comment to every single one and instead read out a statement. The police bailed him to continue investigating, but as they were doing so got news.

[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

He's booked on a flight to go tomorrow. If anyone interferes with him getting on that flight, there will be repercussions.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

That's next time on the surgeon of St. Helena. Dr. Sergio Vertoro Brand did not respond to our requests for comment and the St Helena government which runs the hospital decline 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 was written and hosted by me, Luke Jones. Louisa Adams is the producer, Ailsa Rochester is the executive producer and sound design is by Craig Edmondson. Want some more True Crime? Why don't you check out my weekly podcast Strangely? Each week I join my friend and true crime podcast queen Poppy Damon to swap stories from either side of the Atlantic about some truly weird goings on from our notebooks, from our headlines. It spans UFO encounters to thieves swallowing diamonds, to people pretending to be monarchs. Search for strangely and hit. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Bernard McCabe (Retired Detective)]

you sold somebody a loaded gun who you knew was in a vulnerable state and they shot themselves, I think it is murder.

[Luke Jones (Podcast Host and Narrator)]

Just because you're using the Internet doesn't mean you get away with murder. I'm Damon Fairless, host of Hunting Warhead. This season I take you inside the business of suicide and the places desperate people go when they can't find what they need in the real world Hunting the Suicide Salesman available now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Host (Always True Crime Network 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 at Always True crime dot com.