Widow speaks of three-year ordeal after husband dies in knee operation

The 43-year-old family man had been troubled by a persistent knee problem for months, preventing him from enjoying long walks with his wife, two young daughters and their dogs.

So when Mr Belcuore was admitted to the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry for routine surgery in October 2009, he was looking forward to getting rid of the pain which was holding him back.

A pole vault champion at school, the international computer sales manager wanted to return to sport after the procedure to treat worn cartilage.

But instead, he never came round. His wife Penny was expecting to make her way to the hospital to pick him up when she had a telephone call that brought her world crashing down.

She was told the devastating, incomprehensible news – her husband had had a heart attack during surgery and died.

Mrs Belcuore, pregnant with the couple's unborn son at the time, was a widow who suddenly had to face bringing up two baby girls and the newborn on her own.

Today the 36-year-old's three-year fight for answers over her husband's surgery appears to be nearing an end after she was awarded an undisclosed settlement.

Surgeon Professor James Richardson has spent the past three weeks facing a fitness to practise tribunal, with allegations centring on adjustments he made to surgical equipment used in Mr Belcuore's operation.

The General Medical Council claims Professor Richardson went against manufacturer's guidelines by modifying the device, crucially compromising it. The hearing has been told air got into Mr Belcuore's blood vessels, causing an embolism.

Mrs Belcuore says she believes her husband's case may have gone unreported but for her letter of complaint to the GMC.

"As far as I am concerned, Professor Richardson experimented on my husband," she said. "He may have said in his evidence that he performed the procedure many times but he did not say this at the inquest.

"Even a junior doctor would know that putting air at high pressure into a knee cavity could be disastrous.

"The equipment he had modified was meant to be used on larger areas in conjunction with sealant. He didn't use a sealant, put a needle on the equipment and blew air at high pressure into the knee cavity."

Mrs Belcuore acknowledges Professor Richardson never intended the outcome of the operation.

"I refuse to become bitter and I appreciate that he is human and would never have wanted this to happen," she said.

"But I cannot believe that this man has been allowed to carry on practising after Louis died. Any other profession would have seen him suspended at least until an investigation had been carried out.

"I feel very angry that he has been allowed to continue these past three years."

Mrs Belcuore added tearfully: "I have not only lost my best friend but the father to my three children. They will grow up never really knowing what an amazing man he was. He loved being a family. We would go walking in the Cotswolds with the children and the dogs. But he was scared to carry the girls in case his knee gave way. He was excited about the operation."

Her ordeal comes after tragedy struck during her childhood.

"My father died in a road accident when I was six," she said. "My mother was left, like me, with a young family to bring up alone. And I know, like my children know, what it is like to grow up without a father.

"I have had to fight so hard for the answers to my questions. I had to write a letter of complaint to the General Medical Council. And I believe that, if I hadn't had such a legal team investigating, some of the details would not have come out."

She said the family had had such a lot to look forward to when her husband died.

"We had been trying for another child and Louis had admitted he would love a son. But we had both been working away and had not had much time together. So to find out after his death that I was pregnant was something of a miracle," she said.

The baby, also called Louis, is now two-and-a-half, growing up with five-year-old Sienna and six-year-old Lidia.

"Louis looks so like his father and all three children have his big character."

"My family and friends have been incredibly supportive. I would not be here today without my own mum. She is such a strength for me. Louis' death has left a huge hole in so many peoples' lives as he was such a character.

"He worked as a sales manager for a large international computer firm. They were so saddened by his death they named a new boardroom at the UK headquarters in Reading the Belcuore room."

Mrs Belcuore is determined her husband's death will not affect the children or stop her getting on with life. But she hopes her fight will prevent another family suffering like her own.

"I would hate what has happened to Louis to happen to someone else because someone was experimenting – playing God.

"I am learning to find joy in my life again, through the children."