Sheila Anne Cassidy (born 18 August 1937)[1][2] 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.
[3] During the early part of her custody, she was severely tortured in the notorious Villa Grimaldi near Santiago, Chile, to force her to disclose information about her patient and her other contacts.
[6] Her subsequent description of her experiences, including her account of her torture on the parrilla (electric shock device where the victim is strapped to a metal frame or "grill") 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.
[7] After a period of recovery from the physical and psychological effects of her ordeal (during which she briefly became a nun), Cassidy continued to practise as a doctor.
Whilst at St Luke's, Cassidy sat for a life-size portrait study in 1982 by painter Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002).