Suspended sentence for killer surgeon
A surgeon who admitted the manslaughter of a grandmother who died when he bungled an operation on her liver walked free from the Old Bailey today.
Stephen Walker, 47, received a suspended sentence despite being responsible for the deaths of four women and maiming six others.
Walker, of Camberley, who changed his plea to guilty halfway through his trial last week, looked straight ahead as the judge imposed a 21-month sentence suspended for two years.
Judge Sir Stephen Mitchell said the Blackpool Victoria Hospital had not done enough to stop Walker operating on patients.
The court had heard how Walker broke off from the seven-hour operation on Dorothy McPhee, 71, to pose for pictures of him with parts of her liver. Mrs McPhee lost 35 pints of blood during surgery in 1995 and died soon afterwards.
The judge today said he was sparing Walker jail because of the length of time it took to investigate the death of Mrs McPhee. He said: "Her death was followed by a lamentable systemic failure. The police were not asked to investigate until six years after Mrs McPhee's death."
He accused the pathologist for a "misleading" post mortem and the coroner for not ordering an inquest.
Walker was finally suspended from the hospital in 1999 after all 16 anaesthetists refused to work with him.
In October 2001 the General Medical Council ordered Walker's name be struck from the register after finding he displayed "serious incompetence and clinical misjudgment" in the treatment of 10 patients, four of whom died. Walker appealed and was allowed back on the register on condition he never returned to operative surgery. He was suspended again after being charged and remains so.
Lancashire Police became involved when the Blackpool coroner ordered an inquiry after the GMC ruling and Walker was charged with the manslaughter of three women.
He went on trial last month denying the manslaughter of Mrs McPhee and Jean Robinson, 66, who died in 1995. The charges of manslaughter of Mrs Robinson and of another woman were allowed to lie on the file.
