A RETIRED surgeon who is accused of indecently touching a young hospital patient was the “perfect example” of what you would want in a doctor, a jury was told.

Magdy Eskander’s barrister, Anthony Maycroft, set out 12 reasons why the jury in his trial should find him not guilty of sex charges, which arose out of two visits the girl made to Darlington Memorial Hospital in 2011.

She claims Mr Eskander, who specialised in child orthopaedics, twice fondled her breasts and also touched her genitals while she attended with a back complaint.

In his closing speech, Mr Maycroft suggested the complainant was not telling the truth, while aspects of the evidence “made no sense” and were contradictory.

The barrister repeatedly questioned accounts given by the alleged victim and her mother and queried why she had gone back for further appointments with Mr Eskander if he had abused her.

He said: “Despite her sex education and her knowing about what abuse was she went back to see him time and time again.

“To let [Mr Eskander] put her in the same position it just beggars belief.”

Mr Maycroft added: “The Crown say why would she make up this complaint? That is not for us to say.

“Is she an attention seeker? It is not a relevant matter one way or another.

“There might be an unknown reason to make something up or she may have simply misinterpreted matters.”

Mr Maycroft said the 59-year-old defendant, who was educated in Egypt and came to the UK in the early 1980s, did not need to give evidence in his own defence, as he did, and had answered every question from the prosecution.

When in the witness box he said he did not recall the complainant, having seen more than 600 patients a year, and would always be accompanied by a chaperone during examinations.

Mr Maycroft said: “The suggestion that he has done this disgusts him. To put him in the same bracket as a paedophile when he has cared his whole professional life for patients is disgusting.

“He is the perfect example of what you want in a doctor, you want to see expert skill and he is someone also with utter modesty.”

Mr Eskander, of Chilton, County Durham, denies charges of sexual assault in respect of the complainant and has already been cleared of abusing another girl in the same year.

The jury is expected to be sent out tomorrow in order to consider its verdicts once Judge Tony Briggs finishes his summing up.