Hostile

During my time on St Helena, it became clear that obviously not everybody who had encountered Dr. Sergio had a problem with him.

On an afternoon off, I headed up Jacob's Ladder, which is 699 steep steps going right up the cliff with Jamestown at the bottom and a place called Ladder Hill at the top.

It was hot.

I was less fit than I thought.

So as I was wheezing and huffing and puffing at the top, a lady offered me a ride back into town.

She was asking me what I was doing there.

I was talking about Dr. Sergio, and she said, actually, her husband had been operated on by Sergio, and it had all gone well.

And her husband had really benefited from the operation.

Newspaper editor Vince, who said his late wife was treated by Dr. Sergio, had a broadly positive experience.

He did, um, attend to her on more than one occasion.

And strangely enough, uh, we had no complaints.

But there are plenty with complaints.

As things stand, solicitor Ruth has 129 clients.

The vast majority, 92, say they were injured by Dr. Sergio Villatoro Bran, and 30 accuse Dr. Carlos Soto, the Guatemalan who had been chief medical officer when Dr. Sergio was hired.

And I was thinking, in all of this legal drama, where are they? What are they up to? Let's start with Dr.

Soto.

I have been doing some digging, and I found out that Carlos Soto left the island as Bran was being investigated.

Actually, one person told me that he abandoned his car at the airport, such was his rush.

But looking online here, I can see that at least in the last few years, he has been working at a hospital in Turks and Caicos, which is a British overseas territory in the Caribbean.

There's an advert here for him hosting some kind of event about breast cancer awareness.

He's listed on the website of that hospital still.

We reached out to that hospital and asked if we could speak to Dr. Soto, but he never responded.

So what about his former colleague then, and the man he helped bring to St Helena, Dr. Sergio? He is in Guatemala, still working as a surgeon.

And it is incredible that he's still working and seemingly operating on people.

Remember, this is after he pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful wounding, and the court said that they would write the Guatemalan authorities to suggest he be struck off, before you get into any of the claims which have been made about him beyond that.