Surgeon Pleads Guilty To Insurance Fraud After Amputating Own Legs For Sexual Fetish

Former National Health Service vascular surgeon Neil Hopper, 49, admitted to insurance fraud Thursday after deliberately maiming himself to fulfill a sexual obsession, according to the BBC.

Prosecutors said Hopper used dry ice to freeze his legs until doctors amputated them, driven by long-standing body dysphoria and what they described as a sexual fixation, the outlet reported. (RELATED: DOJ Considers Transgender Gun Ban After Catholic School Massacre)

“His motivations were a combination of obsession with removing parts of his own body and a sexual interest in doing so,” the prosecutor reportedly said.

Court records showed Hopper bought three videos from a “EunuchMaker” pornography site featuring livestreamed mutilations, including non-medical amputations of male genitalia, the New York Post reported.

He also allegedly exchanged roughly 1,500 messages with the site’s operator — now serving a life sentence for performing consensual on-camera amputations — and discussed his own plans in detail, according to the BBC. The prosecutor said Hopper “bitterly regrets” his “dishonesty” in undergoing the surgeries, but doesn’t regret the amputations themselves.

Following his surgeries, Hopper branded himself the “bionic surgeon” and made multiple media appearances documenting his new life, the Post reported.

TOPSHOT – In this photograph taken on December 18, 2017, seven year old French child Anais, undergoes heart surgery to cure a congenital Atrial septal defect, at an operating theatre at The Marie Lannelongue Hospital at Le Plessis-Robinson south of Paris. (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Hopper was taken into custody in March 2023, and his medical license was suspended that December, the BBC reported. He had worked for a decade at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT), where he performed hundreds of amputations.

RCHT said its “exhaustive investigations have found no evidence whatsoever to indicate any risk or harm to patients at our hospitals.” But Mike Bird of Enable Law argued it was “such a serious situation that there must be a rigorous public investigation,” according to the outlet.

A friend allegedly urged Hopper to “milk the payout” from a $625,000 insurance claim, which he used to buy a camper van, renovate his home and install a hot tub, the Post reported.

He was sentenced to 22 months in prison for fraud and another 10 months for possessing extreme pornography.