Unethical, overconfident, lied repeatedly. Poorly skilled - left me with a deformity. No empathy/remorse. Continually gaslights.

I have written this review to help save someone like me from this horrific experience. I was so fooled by Roberts's friendly nature and confidence. He is an ENT doctor and I naively saw him as a doctor, rather than a plastic surgeon. I completely trusted him and it was the biggest mistake of my life. He has ruined my nose (and the appearance of my eyes/cheeks/skin) to the point that my friends and family have told me not to go back to him for a revision (even though it's free) as he will mess me up my face even more.

I requested my surgical notes and therefore was finally able to read my consent form without feeling rushed by Roberts. I've uploaded some photos (cropped to maintain my anonymity).

****HE DIDN'T FOLLOW THE HOSPITAL PROCEDURES DESIGNED TO PROTECT PATIENTS****
The consent form states that I should have already received the risks and benefits page, which of course I hadn't. It also says if I hadn't then I would be offered a copy now, which Roberts didn't do either. On the other page, there's a part that Roberts should have circled to say whether I had accepted a copy, which he's ignored.

I cannot believe that a doctor is able to get away with this in the UK. Not only did he not talk me through the real risks, he ignored the safety net the hospital had in place to ensure patients are fully informed. Also note how he's mentioned the website but his website doesn't mention any risks, only benefits.

****UNCARING AND RUSHED ME DURING THE CONSENT FORM STAGE****
This is further evidence of what I've been saying all along; Roberts didn't want to tell me the real risks to avoid scaring me away. I was asking him questions about the results/risks before surgery so he clearly hadn't fully prepared me even after 3 consultations. A caring and ethical doctor would have taken his time with me to make sure I was fully informed before performing life changing and irreversible surgery on my face. Instead, Roberts rushed me with the consent form and then rushed me into surgery so there would be no going back. A surgeon that is capable of doing this to anyone is an extremely dangerous surgeon to go to.

****VAGUE RISKS AIMED AT PROTECTING HIM NOT INFORMING THE PATIENT****
I haven't uploaded the risks part for a reason but please message me if you want the photo. It's extremely vague, (7 words in total), and is designed at protecting Roberts's legally rather than informing the patient of the potential outcomes. I've seen the consent form from a patient on here who went to another surgeon. They received the consent form in advance of the surgery and it has a long list of specific risks.

****ASSEMBLY LINE PLASTIC SURGEON****
The fact that Roberts doesn't write letters when other doctors do (who also work on the NHS), supports my (and Faye Phillips's) review that he's an assembly line plastic surgeon. Dictating a letter doesn't take more than a few minutes, if he doesn't have time to do this, he should see less patients. But he's going for quantity not quality - if some noses/faces get messed up his assembly line, it's just collateral damage to him. He doesn't care about the impact this has had on me because I wasn't an individual in the first place. The only thing he does care about is the damage to his reputation.

Remember, when a surgeon gives a refund to an unhappy patient they also sign a non-disclosure, which means they can't post bad reviews or mention the surgeon's name even when they do post online. This means that a negative outcome has very little impact on the surgeon's reputation so please make sure you go to a doctor with a conscience. I really did believe Roberts was a caring doctor until the day of the surgery and I just didn't have quite enough time to process his behaviour.

As well as the signs already described in the update above that I very foolishly didn't pick up on because he's an ENT surgeon and not a cosmetic surgeon, I've set out a few more things below.
*****Absence of bad reviews could just mean the relevant patients have been refunded their money*****
I now know that when some surgeons make mistakes or produce bad outcomes, they offer the patient a refund and get the patient to sign an agreement not to post bad reviews.
*****Roberts didn't commit to anything in writing*****
Roberts didn't write a single letter after our 3 consultations. This shows that 1) he doesn't like to commit to anything in writing and 2) he doesn't want to spend any extra time writing letters. In our second and third consultation, he didn't make a single note of what I was asking or saying either.
The surgeon I saw for second opinion wrote a long letter even though he knew I wasn't considering surgery with him. The eye surgeons I saw about fillers also wrote long letters covering the risks and the benefits. All these surgeons only received a consultation fee. That Roberts didn't write a single letter for a £4k procedure (when his peers do so for so much less) speaks volumes about him as a doctor.
****When Roberts says a 'subtle' change it's actually significant****
He told me it would be a subtle change that others wouldn't notice and the morphs showed a very subtle change. The actual change is so much more drastic and the other surgeon called it a 'significant' narrowing of the nasal bones. Something that's significant should never be described as subtle, especially on a patient's face. The fact that he referred to it as subtle shows he doesn't care about the psychological impact of the surgery at all.
****He rarely offered any information, it had to be elicited*****
Unless I asked a specific question, he really wasn't giving up any information. Like I said, I strongly feel now that he knew that if he gave me too much information (e.g if you need a revision this could involve fillers/grafts or the need to break your bones again under general anaesthetic) he knew I wouldn't do the operation.
Maybe he's more open with risks with patients when he knows absolutely hate their nose, or he knows he has to be e.g. he knows they're having counselling or are very young but, like I've said in a comment, I've heard from 3 people recently that went for consultations with him and he didn't talk about risks with them.
*****Unpredictable healing is his catch-all excuse for anything that goes wrong but it only gets mentioned after surgery*****
It's so telling how just before the surgery when I asked about my tip, Roberts just offered me assurance. There was no mention of 'unpredictable healing' because he knew I wouldn't do the surgery.
Now that it has changed and I have dents, bulges etc everything is blamed on unpredictable healing. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no freak scar tissue. My nose bridge has just been over-shaved and narrowed too much because Roberts could not waste a minute of his time analysing my nose and planning what he would do pre-op.

Sorry for the very long update but hopefully it’s comprehensive. The headings of each section summarise my grievances with Roberts.

I have already posted some of this information to Hopeful20's review in the comments. It's worth referring to these too because other people mention their experiences. I think the biggest mistake I made was thinking that, because of the Tatler top surgeon recommendation and as an ENT, Roberts was different from the usual cosmetic surgeons.

*****MISLED ME INTO HAVING THE SURGERY*****
Before the operation, there were certain " deal-breakers" that would have stopped me doing the operation:
1) Changes to the tip. (Roberts himself didn't want to change my tip either).
2) The need for grafts - my nose wasn't that bad that I wanted to go down this route and I have allergies/autoimmune conditions that may make it more likely for my body to reject/attack the graft. Roberts was aware of these conditions from the outset.
3) Breaking my nose from the front.

Roberts definitively told me 1) wouldn’t happen on more than one occasion, including just before surgery. He also told me 2) wasn’t needed. For 3) when we asked about the procedure he only mentioned breaking the nose from the sides.

In reality, all three of these actually happened. I cannot explain how soul destroying this is. I made my decision to go ahead with the operation based on the information that Roberts gave me. I completely trusted him and believed that if there were any relevant risks he would tell me.

******POOR PRE-OPERATIVE PLANNING AND IRREVERSIBLE OVERCORRECTION*****
My nose is now sunken on the ride side, has a dent and a cartilage bulge on the left side and has a line that goes across my nose showing where Roberts has shaved down my nose too much.

This isn't due to unpredictable healing. It's due to poor pre-operative planning and over-shaving. For example, Roberts admits that the bump was in cartilage and bone but he only addressed the bone.

Another member on here has pointed out that from an economic (and a revisions statistic) perspective, it's actually better for surgeons to go for overcorrection. Filler is a much cheaper and quicker alternative for them than operating again.

****DIDN’T MENTION ALL THE RISKS TO ALLOW ME TO MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION****
I do not believe that after going to see an honest and ethical doctor, you should ever find yourself in a position that they didn't prepare you for. This is where I find myself. Even if Roberts had said, 'It's not very common but it does happen. If this outcome is totally unacceptable to you, then you shouldn't do the surgery' then at least I was warned. But the fact is, I wouldn't have done the op if he had warned me and I am sure he knew this because he knew my nose wasn't bad.

I had previously seen the 'top' doctors about under eye fillers before and didn't get them because the risks scared me. They literally talked through all the risks with me from most common to less common to rare (e.g. blindness and stroke) even though they had never experienced the rare outcomes. This is because that this is what ethical doctors do; they inform you of all possible eventualities. And this is just for something temporary and reversible like fillers. So I suppose that my experience with these doctors in the past made me assume all 'top' doctors were open, honest and thorough.

What shocks me is that no matter how many questions I asked, Roberts still didn't tell me everything I needed to know to make an informed decision. I can only interpret this now as a way of not scaring me off with the true risks.

******HIS JUSTIFICATION FOR NOT TELLING ME ALL THE RISKS*****
When I complained to Roberts last week that he never warned me before the op about the risk of needing a grafts, he said that ‘I didn't tell you about skin necrosis or the risk of infection either’ as if that somehow justifies not telling me all the risks. Actually it makes it worse, all he’s doing is admitting that he didn’t make me aware of all the risks.

Telling patients about the risks shouldn't be a box-ticking exercise where a doctor just says something generic to cover their back.

He also said the reason he didn't warn me, pre-op, about the risk of needing filler is because I didn't specifically ask about it! To me this is ridiculous, how would I ever know to ask about something that I wouldn't expect. Rhinoplasty is a permanent, surgical procedure why would I go for if I was going to end up being dependent on filler for my nose to look normal? Also, I did ask about grafts and he still didn't tell me 'you don't now, but there's a chance that if I misjudge and overshave your bone, you may need them'.

Fillers and grafts come with their own risks and if there's a chance his patients are going to need them he needs to be telling them about this before the operation.

Roberts also knew I was initially completely unwilling to go under general in the first place. I am now facing the need to go under general again, re-break my bone, grafts/fillers. I also have unwanted changes to my tip and permanent skin staining from the bruises. Roberts did not once mention ANY of these as risks and he still thinks that it’s okay he didn’t.

*****DIDN’T GO THROUGH RISKS ON THE CONSENT FORM*****
When I asked him to go through the risks with me during our second consultation he told me ‘we’ll go through them at the hospital’. I should have insisted he go through them with me at the time but I thought they were just standard general surgery risks (e.g. bleeding, infection). HUGE mistake as he didn't go through the risks with me at the hospital or even tell me where to find them on the consent form. For anyone that hasn’t had an operation/procedure before, this is NOT normal in the UK.

*****BROKEN PROMISES*****
The worst thing is that not only was I not warned but I was specifically told the opposite of what's happened to me i.e. that I wouldn't need grafts and the tip wouldn't look different.

1) Changes to the tip
At my last appointment with him, I think he actually conceded after a lot of disputing that there 'maybe 1mm' change to the rotation of tip. It’s more than 1mm and it makes my nostrils show more so it's a difference to the overall look. I cannot describe how cheated I feel that he didn't tell me this could happen given how emphatic I was that a tiny change to the tip would bother me and the fact that I asked him again just before surgery.

There are also other ways that my tip has changed that including the fact that when I smile it looks completely different (it spreads because my nasal bones have been narrowed) and it looks far too prominent because he's shaved down my bone so much.

2) Needing grafts
He has now admitted that I will need a graft (or fillers), when last time I saw him he said that re-widening the nose would address the dent between the bone and the cartilage. He also admitted that I have a line across my nose that shows the distinction between bone and cartilage. This shows up really badly in photos and what's ironic is that during his 'you'd be surprised at the transformation' spiel, he said that his patients have more confidence in photos after the operation.

****OVERCONFIDENCE IN HIS ABILITIES**
We had told Roberts during my second consultation that I had previously had a non-cosmetic surgery than went wrong I needed several revisions and it had made us distrust surgeons. Instead of telling me about the worst case scenario in this situation or even just asking for more information about what happened, he just said something along the lines of 'I specialise in revisions, I teach students'. I'd already read about the fact that he does a lot of revisions which is one of the reasons I chose to see him.

In hindsight, his response was another red flag but at the time I thought that he was that confident he could improve my nose. I mean why else would he risk robbing a patient, who's already had a hard time, of something they're happy with (the tip) and making their bridge so bad that it now needs grafts to look normal? Turns out because he overestimated his abilities.

I find it shocking that someone that specialises in fixing nose jobs that have gone wrong didn't warn me about what could possibly happen to me. He either didn't care what he was putting me through or must have been too confident in his abilities (evidently unjustified).

***** YOU ONLY SEE THE RED FLAGS WHEN IT'S TOO LATE*****
I think I wasn't as wary with Roberts precisely because he wasn’t a ‘cosmetic’ surgeon, he was an ENT. This turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. Despite seeing Faye Phillips review about feeling like he was an assembly line plastic surgeon, I can only see the red flags in hindsight. You can only realise how much he didn’t tell you after the operation goes wrong and by then it’s too late - your nose and face has already been ruined. Then suddenly all the omission of detail becomes clear and, I have to say, tactical. I'm sure he knew that if he had told me that there was a small risk that I might need fillers or a graft, he would have scared me off.

******TRIVIALISING SURGERY AND PREYING ON MY INSECURITIES*****
One of my biggest mistakes is that I didn’t see any other consultant to show me how much Roberts was trivialising the surgery, downplaying the risks and not properly analysing my nose. This wasn't to save money but because of the top doctor recommendation and the past patient review on here.

In hindsight, I now see that he also preyed on a minor insecurity I had. Here are things he said when he saw that I was uncertain about going ahead with the operation:
"I can see why it bothers you, it's in the middle of your face....It will bring out your eyes"
"If I thought it wasn't in your best interests, I would tell you" "If I didn't think I could do it, I would say"
"You'd be surprised at the transformation"

He didn’t tell me anything like ‘you should only do this if you really hate your nose'.

*****DIDN'T GENUINELY CARE FOR ME AS A PATIENT*****
After the surgery, when I went back to him the third time, I was crying saying I should have never had it done and that my original nose was so much better. My mum told him I was extremely depressed because of the results of the surgery. (I have gone through some very difficult times before this but have never been depressed.) He told me to get counselling and agreed to a revision but he didn’t once check up on me to see how I was doing. If I ever needed any solid evidence he didn't care about me as an individual, this was it.