Introducing: The Surgeon Of St Helena
6/21/20262 min
What happens when a dangerous surgeon arrives on one of the world’s most remote islands? How much damage can he do before he is stopped?
St Helena is a small island in the South Atlantic, over 1000 miles from the nearest landmass. It is famous for hosting Napoleon in exile, and boasts the world's oldest living land mammal, Jonathan the tortoise, as one of its residents.
But this tiny British Overseas Territory is gripped with scandal. When orthopedic surgeon Dr Sergio Villatoro arrived in 2015 he was supposed to revolutionise care on the island. Instead he caused unimaginable harm.
Was it incompetence?
Or was he deliberately causing harm?
And is the government of St Helena trying to block the residents' fight for justice?
Following on from the critically acclaimed The Pitcairn Trials, Luke Jones investigates another scandal unfolding in one of Britain’s most isolated territories.
First episodes arrive June 28th 2026, hit follow so you don't miss this show.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 1· Soundbite0:07
They did the damage to him, you know, and make our life more harder than it used to be.
Speaker 2· Soundbite0:13
My first thought was, well, how did he get away with it for so long?
Luke Jones· Host0:19
The first series in this feed was called The Pit Can Trials. It was all about a very, very small, very, very remote British island in the South Pacific. We told the story of a police officer who went out there in the late 90s and slowly uncovered widespread child sexual abuse. But that is a scandal very much in the past. In the wake of releasing that series, though, lots of people got in touch with me with their own experiences, other stories about other communities. One particular email really struck me, though. I remember the subject line, more outrageous scandal. An email read, I'm sorry to say that I know another story of extremely familiar themes that are occurring as I write on another British overseas territory, which similarly and very unfortunately has its roots and cause firmly founded in a shameful past and a coercive present. Well, I thought, that needs investigating. On Pitcairn, the problem was homegrown.
Speaker 2· Soundbite1:28
He just struck me as a kind of