The man who sparked a global health scare by selling breast implants containing industrial silicone was jailed for four years yesterday by a court in Marseille.
Jean-Claude Mas (above), founder of Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP), was convicted of aggravated fraud. Four other defendants, former PIP executives or managers, were also found guilty and given jail sentences.
The firm caused international a health scare when it was found that the faulty implants had been made with substandard and non-authorised material not fit for humans. At one time PIP was the third biggest global supplier of breast implants, used in an estimated 300,000 women in 65 countries.
Some of the women were given the faulty implants during breast reconstruction operations after undergoing mastectomies as part of their cancer treatment.
Mas, 74, wearing white trainers and a checked jacket, remained impassive as the judgment was announced on Tuesday. He was also fined €75,000 (£63,000) and banned from ever running a company or working in the medical field.
His lawyer, Yves Haddad, said he was "disappointed but not surprised" and his client would appeal.
The judgment against the man the public prosecutor had described as the "sorcerer's apprentice of implants" will give a modicum of closure to the many women affected. About 50 out of the 7,113 women who were civil parties to the legal case were present in court for the sentencing.
At their month-long trial in May the accused had admitted fraudulently using unapproved gel in the implants, at an annual profit of €1m, but Mas had denied it was harmful, while three of his co-accused said they were unaware of the possible dangers.
The case, however, which involved 300 lawyers, did not seek to establish whether the PIP implants posed a health risk, even though studies suggest they have a higher than average tendency to rupture or leak.
The French Health Products Agency (ANSM) has reported 7,500 cases of PIP implants rupturing and 3,000 cases of "undesirable side effects" – mainly inflammation.
One of the defence lawyers, Jean Boudot, described Mas as an authoritarian boss and spoke of the "terrible normality of the abnormal" at PIP's production plant.
Mas is facing a second trial for causing "involuntary harm", but that case is not expected to come to court for several years.
In 2012, British medical experts concluded the PIP breast implants were more likely to rupture or leak than other implants, but that the substandard silicone in them did not pose a significant risk to women's health in the long term.
