Hundreds of patients will seek compensation after a breast surgeon was convicted of carrying out needless operations, solicitors have said.

Ian Paterson, 59, was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent, relating to nine women and one man in the West Midlands.

Thompsons Solicitors said 350 women were now bringing a High Court case.

A lawyer who investigated Paterson asked how he could “get away with what he was doing” in the NHS for so long.

Paterson, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, was also found guilty of three counts of unlawful wounding at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday.

The surgeon, who treated thousands of patients during his career, exaggerated or invented cancer risks and claimed payments for more expensive procedures in some cases, the court was told.

Paterson ‘psychopathic like Shipman’

The seven-week trial heard the accounts of 10 victims – representing a sample of those Paterson treated – operated on between 1997 and 2011 at the privately-run Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.

Jurors were not told Paterson carried out hundreds of unnecessary operations on NHS patients, with a hospital trust paying out £17.8m in damages and legal costs.

He was granted bail and is due to be sentenced in May.

Law firm Slater and Gordon said there could be “hundreds, if not thousands” of other potential claimants.