'Doctor Death' jailed for four years after butchering dozens of women during plastic surgery

A plastic surgeon dubbed Doctor Death after butchering dozens of women has been sent to prison for four years. 

Frenchman Michel Maure, 59, is currently in prison in Spain where he was arrested last month following an international manhunt. 

He will also have to pay a fine of £60,000 and compensate every one of his victims with sums to be agreed. 

Maure went on the run in his luxury yacht after a court in Marseilles, in the south of France, found him guilty of mutilating and endangering the lives of at least 90 women.

He was granted bail until September 8, when he was due to be sentenced, but breached bail conditions, prompting French police to issue a European arrest warrant.

During his trial the court heard that he had carried out dozens of operations, including breast enhancements and liposuction in a dirty, run down clinic in Marseille.

He left his victims physically and psychologically scarred with failed breast implants, liposuction, facelifts and nose remodelling. 

Maure, dubbed Doctor Death by the French press, failed to administer enough local anaesthetic, inflicting severe agony on his patients, said prosecutors.

The remodelled breast of one woman slid to her armpit overnight, the court was told, while another found her shoes filling with blood as she drove home after a terrifying midriff liposuction.

Maure, an anaesthetist by training, was able to operate as a cosmetic surgeon under a loophole in French law that was closed only in 2002.

He was found guilty on charges of illegal practice, endangering life and wounding.

His charge sheet listed 96 operations, although many more are believed to have been botched.

When he was arrested in 2004, Maure boasted to police that he carried out 300 operations a year and was "one of the great aesthetic surgeons of the world" and later claimed he was the victim of a plot by jealous rivals.

“There was no suffering. When you go to the dentist, you suffer. It's the same with plastic surgery,” he said.

“The plaintiffs are women who refused to pay for their operation, simple thieves.”

Prosecutors and victims' lawyers said that Maure, who qualified as a doctor in 1974, attracted patients with smooth salesmanship and via an internet site called magicclinic.com. 

He offered relatively low rates and easy methods of payment.

Maure was today sentenced in his absence by the Marseilles Correctional Court.

Court official Vincent Turbeaux said: “He practiced garage medicine. The court sentences him to four years in prison, including one year suspended, and he is obliged to compensate his victims.”

Maure will be extradited to France to serve his sentence, said Mr Turbeaux.