Ian Paterson patient would have taken his mastectomy advice, family say

A former breast cancer patient of disgraced surgeon Ian Paterson would have listened to him, if he had advised her to have a mastectomy, an inquest into her death has heard. Eunice Jones, a mother-of-four from Knowle in the West Midlands, was diagnosed in December 2001 and died aged 47 in 2004. Paterson performed a wide local excision in January 2002, which removed only a portion of the breast tissue. The surgeon claimed Jones was "adamant" she did not want a full mastectomy. However, her family believe that if he had encouraged her to have one, she would have taken his advice, the inquest was told. Eunice Jones is one of 67 former patients of Paterson whose deaths are being investigated at inquest, to determine whether they died an unnatural death as a result of his care and treatment. Paterson was jailed in 2017 after being convicted of wounding patients by way of botched and unnecessary operations, and given a 20-year prison sentence. However, he will be automatically released halfway through his sentence in 2027, before the inquests are due to conclude. On Monday, the inquest saw a letter that Paterson wrote on the day he performed the local excision and node clearance on Eunic