Surgeon who botched patient's bladder op faces jail threat after dodging court over £200,000 debt

Published 21 October 2026, 16:20

• Mrs Justice Lambert ruled Professor Sohier Elneil was 'seeking to frustrate the processes of the court'
• Elneil claimed PTSD and 'severe anxiety' kept her away — yet attended two medical tribunal hearings
• The urogynaecologist owes patient Deborah Biggadike £200,118 for unnecessary surgery performed without consent

A surgeon who performed an unnecessary bladder operation on a patient without her consent faces the threat of prison after a High Court judge found she deliberately skipped a court appointment over a £200,000 unpaid debt.

Mrs Justice Lambert granted a suspended committal order against Professor Sohier Elneil, a urogynaecologist, after she intentionally failed to attend court on 20 May 2025 for questioning about her means to pay a judgment debt owed to former patient Deborah Biggadike.

"I am satisfied that the second defendant is and has been, I regret to say, seeking to frustrate the processes of the court and avoid satisfying the judgment debt which has now been outstanding for many months," the judge said.

The debt stems from a July 2024 ruling by HHJ Carmel Wall, who found Elneil performed unnecessary surgery on Biggadike in January 2017 and failed to obtain her informed consent.

The operation left Biggadike with irritable bladder syndrome, a chronic condition likely to worsen as she ages, and the judge awarded her £200,118.88 in damages.

Beyond £50,000 paid on account of costs, Elneil has paid nothing towards damages or costs, according to Mrs Justice Lambert's ruling.

Biggadike obtained a default costs certificate against the surgeon for £434,876.33 in January 2025, and secured charging orders over Elneil's west London property to protect the debts.

When Biggadike sought a court order requiring Elneil to attend for questioning about her finances, the surgeon dodged service of the papers.

A process server certified that Elneil frustrated his attempts by refusing to agree a suitable day and time for him to return, ignoring his appointment letter, and instructing the concierge of her building to refuse anything from him.

The court then allowed service by post and email, and Royal Mail tracking records show Elneil signed for the documents on 5 April 2025.

The covering letter carried a blunt warning: "FAILURE TO OBEY THE ORDER IN THIS LETTER MAY RESULT IN YOU BEING SENT TO PRISON."

The surgeon repeatedly told the court she was too ill to take part in proceedings, Mrs Justice Lambert found.

In a document dated 6 July 2025 and headed "Self-Certification of Medical Incapacity (Interim Notice)," Elneil stated that severe anxiety and complex PTSD symptoms, together constituting acute mental health distress, left her unable to appear at a hearing.

She claimed she was following "explicit medical guidance" to "limit her exposure to high stress stimuli including adversarial legal contact in order to prevent clinical deterioration and as such she had not been monitoring legal communications during this critical recovery."

Her medical evidence consisted of a fit note from private GP Dr Pixie McKenna dated 10 December 2024 citing "stress," a second McKenna note of 7 July 2025 citing "severe anxiety requiring psychological review," and a letter from consultant psychiatrist Dr Stephen Pereira.

Dr Pereira stated that Elneil was "currently undergoing therapy and treatment for cognitive restructuring and eye movement desensitisation reprocessing" to address post-traumatic stress disorder, and that she would not be able to return to work until mid-January 2026.

Mrs Justice Lambert called the medical material "wholly unsatisfactory," noting that none of it covered 20 May 2025 and that Dr Pereira's letter "is vague in the extreme," with no detail of the therapy, medication or planned interventions.

"There is, in my judgement, a very significant difference between signing off a urogynaecologist from clinical and surgical work and certifying that he or she is unable to attend court for questioning by a court officer," the judge said.

Other evidence flatly contradicted the claims of incapacity, the judge found.

While supposedly unfit, Elneil attended Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearings on 1 August and 16 September 2025, where she gave evidence, was cross-examined and had done considerable preparation, including compiling logs of reflective behaviour and drafting a witness statement.

Elneil had been found in 2024 to have impaired fitness to practise, with the findings relating to dishonesty and to not securing a patient's informed consent before proceeding, and was suspended for nine months.

The August 2025 review panel found her still impaired and imposed a further suspension because she had failed to demonstrate insight into the dishonesty finding.

Since Elneil was well enough in August 2025 to attend that hearing and give evidence, Mrs Justice Lambert said she could see "no good reason" why the surgeon could not have come to court to answer questions about paying her debt.

The judge noted Elneil breached multiple court orders, including a 7 July 2025 order to produce substantiating medical evidence and a 9 October 2025 order to explain inconsistencies about her academic and public speaking commitments.

Mrs Justice Lambert also noted a flyer advertising Elneil as a speaker at a Black Female Academics' Network event in Leeds on 20 May 2025 — the day she was due in court — saying attendance would have been "a most flagrant breach of the court order."