When a Gold Coast meter maid was warned about the dangers of breast enlargements, her only response was to ask for bigger implants, her operating surgeon has told the NSW Supreme Court.
Andrea Chia's botched boob job was the subject of a report on the Nine Network's A Current Affair (ACA) on August 1 last year that featured "disgraced plastic surgeon" Peter Anthony Haertsch.
The award-winning burns specialist is now suing for defamation after he says the show "crucified" him.
Mr Haertsch has accused journalist Kate Donnison and the network of making him out to be a "monster" in the report about a "popular Gold Coast meter maid" whose breast implants went horribly wrong.
In the report, played to a four-person jury in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Ms Chia described her stitches bursting before the implants began falling out.
In part of an interview for the report, Mr Haertsch said: "In retrospect, I believe the implants were too big for that girl".
But giving evidence on Monday, Mr Haertsch said he had warned Ms Chia about all the possible dangers, telling her she would suffer pain, discomfort, bruising, swelling and would most definitely scar.
He even showed her an album of pictures of breasts scarred by enlargement surgery.
"Did you warn her about the risks of the operation?" Mr Haertsch's barrister Stuart Littlemore QC asked.
"I counselled her about the risks and consequences ... I said 'I will not operate on you if you have any doubts whatsoever'," Mr Haertsch said.
Far from having any doubts, at her next appointment Ms Chia asked for bigger implants.
When Ms Chia returned to Mr Haertsch after her implants had failed he told her she would have to remove them, recover and start all over again.
But reluctant to pay for a second set of implants, Ms Chia asked if her old ones could be re-used for the second operation, Mr Haertsch said.
In his opening address, Mr Littlemore told the jury the ACA report had been "a powerful attack, but a totally untrue one ... a script replete with falsehoods".
The allegation Mr Haertsch had been banned from operating in Queensland after removing another woman's breasts was untrue and the attack on his competency was unfounded and undeserved, Mr Littlemore said.
The program had used heavy editing, "manipulated images and sinister sound effects" to create the defamatory program, he said.
"Peter Haertsch is a brilliant surgeon. One of the finest surgeons in Australia with more than 40 years (experience)," he said.
He spent time operating on poor people in third world countries, treated victims of the Bali bombings, headed the burns unit at the Concord Hospital in Sydney and taught surgery at Sydney University.
"He is an unsung Australian hero, like (eye surgeon) Fred Hollows," Mr Littlemore said.
"This is the man Channel Nine says it will prove has been disgraced.
"To crucify, as Channel Nine did, one of Australia's finest surgeons on national television, to an audience of two million people and then to attempt to justify it just isn't going to work."
The hearing before Justice William Nicholas continues.
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