Sheila Cassidy

Sheila Cassidy (born 18 August 1937) is an English doctor, known for her work in the hospice movement, as a writer and as someone who, by publicising her own history as a torture survivor, drew attention to human rights abuse in Chile in the 1970s.

Born in Cranwell, Lincolnshire, in 1937, Cassidy grew up in Sydney and attended the Our Lady of Mercy College in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. She began her medical studies at the University of Sydney and completed them at Oxford University in 1963. She wanted to become a plastic surgeon but could not keep up with the 90-hour week, so she went to practise medicine in Chile during the government of Salvador Allende.

In 1975, Cassidy was caught up in the violence of the Pinochet regime. She gave medical care to Nelson Gutierrez, a political opponent of the new regime who was being sought by the police. As a result, she was herself arrested on 1 November 1975 by the Chilean secret police, the DINA, and kept in custody without trial. During the early part of her custody, she was severely tortured in the notorious Villa Grimaldi near Santiago, Chile, in order to force her to disclose information about her patient and her other contacts.

Later in 1975, Cassidy was released from custody and returned to the UK with the assistance of the British government and Roberto Kozak. Her subsequent description of her experiences, including her account of her torture on the parrilla and her imprisonment, did much to bring to the attention of the UK public the widespread human rights abuses that were occurring at the time in Chile. Her story appeared in news media and in her book, Audacity to Believe.

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