BBC Information Investigations
A self-styled “attractiveness advisor”, whose famous person consumer checklist comprises Katie Value, is providing doubtlessly bad beauty procedures to shoppers and delivering medicine illegally – a BBC investigation has came upon.
Ricky Sawyer specialises in liquid Brazilian butt-lifts (BBLs) – which comes to injecting dermal filler into buttocks to boost them and cause them to glance larger.
BBC Information has spoken to 5 of his shoppers who wanted emergency health facility remedy after their procedures. We now have additionally been proven the testimonies of greater than 30 girls who say they’ve been left with severe headaches equivalent to sepsis and necrosis (tissue loss of life).
One lady informed us she felt on the time she would moderately “have died” than proceed with the ache she was once in following the remedy.
A number of native government have banned Mr Sawyer from training of their spaces.
Our undercover filming captured Mr Sawyer handing out antibiotics with no legitimate prescription – a legal offence. He isn’t certified to prescribe and the drugs weren’t labelled for a selected affected person.
He additionally presented to inject expanding doses of native anaesthetic with no prescriber provide – once more unlawful – and didn’t ask for our reporter’s weight, thus hanging her liable to an overdose.
Posing as a possible consumer and her pal, we had booked a 45-minute appointment with Mr Sawyer thru his Instagram web page. We informed him we needed a 200ml (7fl ounces) liquid BBL injection costing £1,200. We paid a £200 deposit.
Regardless of having marketed that every one liquid BBLs can be performed underneath the steerage of an “ultrasound specialist physician”, none was once provide at his pop-up health center. He was once figuring out of a small room in an east London place of business block – a non-clinical atmosphere which might have greater the chance of an infection.
Inside 5 mins of being in his place of business, Mr Sawyer had begun to inspire our reporter to take into consideration expanding the volume of filler. “You could be stunned about how a lot product you’ll be able to have and nonetheless glance herbal,” he prompt.
Via the tip of the appointment, Mr Sawyer had presented to inject a litre of filler – 500ml (virtually a pint) in step with buttock – at a price of £2,000.
We didn’t undergo with it and later returned to place our allegations to him – however he refused to respond to our questions and slammed the door on our reporter.
Reviewing our pictures, plastic surgeon Dalvi Humzah, who sits at the Joint Committee of Beauty Practitioners, mentioned Mr Sawyer’s movements had been “surprising”, “very bad”, and hanging sufferers at an enormous chance of an infection and doubtlessly deadly headaches.
“Hanging that quantity in, in a single sitting, is truly bad,” mentioned Mr Humzah. “The buttocks are this sort of massive space that in the event that they develop into inflamed it will possibly crush the frame and may just lead to sepsis – and even loss of life.”
The filler used for liquid BBLs is frequently made up of hyaluronic acid, which is frequently utilized in facial filling therapies. As a result of massive quantities of the acid are fascinated with BBLs, and there’s a chance of significant unwanted side effects equivalent to blood clots and sepsis, it is considered one of the bad beauty procedures.
Mr Sawyer boasted on digicam that he did as much as seven procedures an afternoon, six days every week. He can fee hundreds of kilos in step with appointment.
Probably the most girls who mentioned she had skilled severe headaches after receiving a liquid BBL from Mr Sawyer was once Joanne. A mum of 2 from south Wales, who solely needs us to make use of her first title, she travelled seven hours to Essex for the remedy.
Having had different beauty therapies earlier than and having been persuaded by means of Ricky Sawyer’s many advertisements and famous person endorsements, a liquid BBL did not appear to be this sort of giant step to her.
All she sought after, she says, was once a “peachy bum”.
But if Joanne arrived, she started to have 2d ideas.
She had solely been despatched a postcode and says she gave the look to be strolling into an commercial property.
In any case, she discovered a small door right into a block of apartments and says she was once informed to attend in a “dingy little hallway” for approximately part an hour.
“I must have grew to become and ran,” she says, “however I had paid £600 deposit and travelled all this fashion.”
She was once taken right into a small room the place there “was once just a mattress, a tiny stool and a worktop”, and that’s the place she says she first met Ricky Sawyer.
After counting out the remainder of her money – £2,000 in general – she says he informed her to face in entrance of him whilst he sat at the stool.
As he began to inject her with a litre (1.8 pints) of filler, the ache briefly changed into insufferable.
“I felt dizzy, in poor health and prefer shaky. My legs did not even transfer correctly. And that was once all inside of a minute of him beginning,” she says. “I be mindful taking a look spherical and he had white gloves on that had been filled with blood.”
Via the tip of the process, Joanne was once in agony: “I used to be in such a lot ache, my backside was once utterly disfigured.”
She says she may just slightly sit down down. By the point she were given house the swelling had began and he or she may just hardly ever stroll.
“I messaged Ricky a whole lot of instances to mention how unhealthy I used to be feeling and the way frightened I used to be. He simply informed me to take my antibiotics.”
Via this level, sepsis had begun to set in.
“My temperature saved on going up and I felt horrible,” says Joanne. “I needed to telephone 999. I used to be dripping with sweat and screaming.”
In health facility, she was once connected to intravenous antibiotics. At one level, a surgeon drew on her buttock to suggest the place they could wish to lower, since the an infection was once spreading so briefly.
After messaging Ricky Sawyer pronouncing she was once in health facility with sepsis, she says he blocked her from his Instagram account.
Thankfully, Joanne didn’t want an operation.
Any other of Mr Sawyer’s shoppers, Louise Moller, did want life-saving emergency surgical procedure.
4 days after receiving a liquid BBL at his Essex health center in October 2023, the 28-year-old from Bolton was once in health facility.
She rang her mom, Janet, from Salford Royal’s A&E division pronouncing: “Mum, I believe I will die.”
Louise had shrunk sepsis and was once warned by means of surgeons that she may just die at any minute. To prevent the an infection from transferring thru her frame, they lower useless tissue out of a space virtually masking her complete left buttock.
Janet TaylorJanet promised her daughter she would save you this from going down to somebody else and reported Ricky Sawyer to their native police station in Bolton.
“How can he lift on understanding he may just kill somebody?” she informed the BBC.
Then again, Louise’s case highlights the trouble in maintaining practitioners like him responsible.
Janet says she was once informed by means of police in Bolton that the report would wish to be handed to Essex Police, the place the incident took place.
A prosecution might be tricky alternatively, she was once warned, as a result of Louise had signed a consent shape.
BBC Information has approached each Higher Manchester Police and Essex Police to get an replace at the case – each have mentioned it’s right down to the opposite to analyze.
From a felony viewpoint, there may be little to forestall Mr Sawyer from training.
Injecting dermal fillers is observed as non-surgical and is unregulated, this means that somebody can do it – and they are able to’t be struck off and stopped.
In September 2024, Alice Webb is assumed to have develop into the primary individual to die after receiving a liquid BBL in the United Kingdom. Her process was once now not performed by means of Ricky Sawyer.
Following her loss of life, Save Face – a bunch that campaigns for larger law to hide non-surgical procedures – referred to as for a brand new regulation banning liquid BBLs from being performed by means of somebody rather then surgeons registered with the Common Scientific Council (GMC).
Save Face’s founder, Ashton Collins, says her organisation has won court cases from 39 girls about Ricky Sawyer.
The entire girls, she says, have informed her they’ve been left desiring pressing health facility remedy. Each and every of them, she says, had a BBL and suffered headaches equivalent to sepsis, necrosis and disfigurement.
“We have inspired those girls to document their reviews to the police,” she says. “Some have, and not anything has been completed.”
Up to now, top-of-the-line motion has been taken by means of native government, 3 of which – Glasgow Town Council, Epping Woodland District Council and Brentwood Council – showed they’d issued prohibition notices underneath Well being and Protection regulation to give protection to the general public from severe harm.
However “he simply strikes directly to other spaces of the rustic and carries on”, says Ms Collins.
We put our proof to the Division of Well being and Social Care which mentioned it was once “urgently taking a look at choices for more difficult law”.
It mentioned our findings had been “surprising” and that the ones stuck “shelling out medicine with no licence must really feel the entire drive of the regulation”.
We tried to place our allegations to Ricky Sawyer in individual, by means of confronting him at his east London health center.
Once he noticed the digicam he attempted to slam the door on us, earlier than hiding at the back of it.
We requested him if he was once breaking the regulation by means of handing out prescription-only drugs, and if he had anything else to mention to the ladies who say they had been left with such severe accidents that they wanted emergency care.
“No,” he mentioned – and informed us to go away.
The risks of unregulated plastic surgery must be taken way more significantly, says Ashton Collins.
“The overall vibe that you just pick out up is that those are foolish girls that experience made foolish possible choices, pushed thru self-importance, and it is their very own fault.”
It’s an angle that should trade, she provides: “Persons are available in the market taking dangers with other people’s lives, and they are able to accomplish that with impunity.”
