BBC Information Investigations
A self-styled “magnificence marketing consultant”, whose celeb shopper listing consists of Katie Worth, is providing probably harmful beauty procedures to shoppers and handing over treatment illegally – a BBC investigation has found.
Ricky Sawyer specialises in liquid Brazilian butt-lifts (BBLs) – which entails injecting dermal filler into buttocks to raise them and make them look greater.
BBC Information has spoken to 5 of his shoppers who wanted emergency hospital therapy after their procedures. We now have additionally been proven the testimonies of greater than 30 ladies who say they’ve been left with critical problems equivalent to sepsis and necrosis (tissue dying).
One lady instructed us she felt on the time she would relatively “have died” than proceed with the ache she was in following the therapy.
A number of native authorities have banned Mr Sawyer from practising of their areas.
Our undercover filming captured Mr Sawyer handing out antibiotics and not using a legitimate prescription – a prison offence. He’s not certified to prescribe and the tablets weren’t labelled for a selected affected person.
He additionally provided to inject rising doses of native anaesthetic and not using a prescriber current – once more unlawful – and didn’t ask for our reporter’s weight, thus placing her susceptible to an overdose.
Posing as a possible shopper and her good friend, we had booked a 45-minute appointment with Mr Sawyer by way of his Instagram web page. We instructed him we wished a 200ml (7fl oz) liquid BBL injection costing £1,200. We paid a £200 deposit.
Regardless of having marketed that every one liquid BBLs can be carried out beneath the steerage of an “ultrasound specialist physician”, none was current at his pop-up clinic. He was figuring out of a small room in an east London workplace block – a non-clinical atmosphere which might have elevated the danger of an infection.
Inside 5 minutes of being in his workplace, Mr Sawyer had begun to encourage our reporter to consider rising the quantity of filler. “You is likely to be shocked about how a lot product you possibly can have and nonetheless look pure,” he recommended.
By the tip of the appointment, Mr Sawyer had provided to inject a litre of filler – 500ml (nearly a pint) per 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 reply our questions and slammed the door on our reporter.
Reviewing our footage, plastic surgeon Dalvi Humzah, who sits on the Joint Committee of Beauty Practitioners, stated Mr Sawyer’s actions have been “surprising”, “very harmful”, and placing sufferers at an enormous danger of an infection and probably deadly problems.
“Placing that quantity in, in a single sitting, is absolutely harmful,” stated Mr Humzah. “The buttocks are such a big space that in the event that they grow to be contaminated it could possibly overwhelm the physique and will finish in sepsis – and even dying.”
The filler used for liquid BBLs is commonly made up of hyaluronic acid, which is often utilized in facial filling therapies. As a result of massive quantities of the acid are concerned in BBLs, and there’s a danger of great unwanted effects equivalent to blood clots and sepsis, it’s considered some of the harmful beauty procedures.
Mr Sawyer boasted on digicam that he did as much as seven procedures a day, six days per week. He can cost 1000’s of kilos per appointment.
One of many ladies who stated she had skilled critical problems after receiving a liquid BBL from Mr Sawyer was Joanne. A mum of two from south Wales, who solely desires us to make use of her first identify, she travelled seven hours to Essex for the therapy.
Having had different beauty therapies earlier than and having been persuaded by Ricky Sawyer’s many adverts and celeb endorsements, a liquid BBL did not seem to be such a giant step to her.
All she wished, she says, was a “peachy bum”.
However when Joanne arrived, she started to have second ideas.
She had solely been despatched a postcode and says she gave the impression to be strolling into an industrial property.
Ultimately, she discovered a small door right into a block of flats and says she was instructed to attend in a “dingy little hallway” for about half an hour.
“I ought to have turned and ran,” she says, “however I had paid £600 deposit and travelled all this manner.”
She was taken right into a small room the place there “was solely 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 complete – she says he instructed her to face in entrance of him whereas he sat on the stool.
As he began to inject her with a litre (1.8 pints) of filler, the ache shortly turned insufferable.
“I felt dizzy, sick and like shaky. My legs did not even transfer correctly. And that was all inside a minute of him beginning,” she says. “I bear in mind wanting spherical and he had white gloves on that have been filled with blood.”
By the tip of the process, Joanne was in agony: “I used to be in a lot ache, my backside was utterly disfigured.”
She says she might barely sit down. By the point she received house the swelling had began and she or he might hardly stroll.
“I messaged Ricky a great deal of instances to say how unhealthy I used to be feeling and the way nervous I used to be. He simply instructed me to take my antibiotics.”
By this level, sepsis had begun to set in.
“My temperature stored on going up and I felt horrible,” says Joanne. “I needed to telephone 999. I used to be dripping with sweat and screaming.”
In hospital, she was connected to intravenous antibiotics. At one level, a surgeon drew on her buttock to point the place they may want to chop, as a result of the an infection was spreading so shortly.
After messaging Ricky Sawyer saying she was in hospital with sepsis, she says he blocked her from his Instagram account.
Happily, Joanne didn’t want an operation.
One 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 clinic in October 2023, the 28-year-old from Bolton was in hospital.
She rang her mom, Janet, from Salford Royal’s A&E division saying: “Mum, I believe I’ll die.”
Louise had contracted sepsis and was warned by surgeons that she might die at any minute. To cease the an infection from shifting by way of her physique, they minimize lifeless tissue out of an space nearly masking her total left buttock.
Janet TaylorJanet promised her daughter she would forestall this from occurring to anybody else and reported Ricky Sawyer to their native police station in Bolton.
“How can he keep on figuring out he might kill somebody?” she instructed the BBC.
Nonetheless, Louise’s case highlights the issue in holding practitioners like him accountable.
Janet says she was instructed by police in Bolton that the file would should be handed to Essex Police, the place the incident occurred.
A prosecution could possibly be troublesome nevertheless, she was warned, as a result of Louise had signed a consent kind.
BBC Information has approached each Better Manchester Police and Essex Police to get an replace on the case – each have stated it’s right down to the opposite to analyze.
From a authorized viewpoint, there may be little to cease Mr Sawyer from practising.
Injecting dermal fillers is seen as non-surgical and is unregulated, which suggests anybody can do it – they usually cannot be struck off and stopped.
In September 2024, Alice Webb is believed to have grow to be the primary particular person to die after receiving a liquid BBL within the UK. Her process was not carried out by Ricky Sawyer.
Following her dying, Save Face – a gaggle that campaigns for larger regulation to cowl non-surgical procedures – known as for a brand new legislation banning liquid BBLs from being carried out by anybody apart from surgeons registered with the Normal Medical Council (GMC).
Save Face’s founder, Ashton Collins, says her organisation has obtained complaints from 39 ladies about Ricky Sawyer.
All the ladies, she says, have instructed her they’ve been left needing pressing hospital therapy. Every of them, she says, had a BBL and suffered problems equivalent to sepsis, necrosis and disfigurement.
“We have inspired these ladies to report their experiences to the police,” she says. “Some have, and nothing has been carried out.”
To date, the best motion has been taken by native authorities, three of which – Glasgow Metropolis Council, Epping Forest District Council and Brentwood Council – confirmed that they had issued prohibition notices beneath Well being and Security legislation to guard the general public from critical harm.
However “he simply strikes on to completely different areas of the nation and carries on”, says Ms Collins.
We put our proof to the Division of Well being and Social Care which stated it was “urgently choices for harder regulation”.
It stated our findings have been “surprising” and that these caught “allotting treatment and not using a licence ought to really feel the total power of the legislation”.
We tried to place our allegations to Ricky Sawyer in particular person, by confronting him at his east London clinic.
As quickly as he noticed the digicam he tried to slam the door on us, earlier than hiding behind it.
We requested him if he was breaking the legislation by handing out prescription-only medication, and if he had something to say to the ladies who say they have been left with such critical accidents that they wanted emergency care.
“No,” he stated – and instructed us to depart.
The hazards of unregulated beauty surgical procedure ought to be taken much more severely, says Ashton Collins.
“The overall vibe that you simply choose up is that these are foolish ladies which have made foolish selections, pushed by way of vainness, and it is their very own fault.”
It’s an angle that should change, she provides: “Persons are on the market taking dangers with folks’s lives, they usually can accomplish that with impunity.”