Surgeon Had a 'Sexual Interest' in Amputation. Why Is He Jailed After His Own Legs Were Amputated? By Samira Asma-Sadeque 24

A British surgeon who reportedly had his legs amputated under false medical pretenses in order to satisfy his sexual fetish of amputations has been jailed.

Neil Hopper, a 49-year-old vascular surgeon in Truro, Cornwall County in southwestern England, received a jail sentence of two years and eight months after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud and three counts of possessing extreme pornography, per the BBC and The Guardian.

A Truro court heard on Thursday, Sept. 4, that Hopper had both his legs amputated after complaining about feet pain and being treated for suspected sepsis, the BBC reported.

His legs were removed after surgeons determined so, but they were not aware of the truth behind his claims.

The offenses of fraud stemmed from insurance claims he made from two firms totaling £466,000 (nearly $623,000), which prosecutor Nicholas Lee said was a result of his “greed,” per the BBC.

He had made those claims falsely stating that his legs had been amputated owing to the sepsis, and not self-injury, The Guardian reported.

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

Hopper had also purchased three videos from a website of men willingly having their genitals removed, the BBC reported.

During Hopper’s sentencing, Judge James Adkin said that the “level of harm” exhibited in the body mutilation videos which resulted in the pornography charges was “exceptionally high,” according to the BBC.

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Hopper’s conviction comes more than a year after the 2024 conviction of Marius Gustavson, the owner of the website where Hopper had accessed pornography related to body modification and body harm.

In May 2024, Gustavson pleaded guilty to several crimes, including conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm, creating and distributing indecent images of a child and possessing extreme pornography relating to his website “Eunuch Maker,” the BBC reported at the time.