CAMPAIGNERS plan to be legally represented when they meet a senior police officer to discuss the Richard Neale affair.

Leaders of the support group for medical victims of the struck-off surgeon will show that they mean business by instructing a solicitor to sit in on the meeting.

"We are determined to get across our anger at the way in which the police investigation into Richard Neale was conducted," said Graham Maloney, advisor to the group.

North Yorkshire Police have agreed to meet representatives of the patient group on Monday, May 24, at the home of its founder Sheila Wright-Hogeland, in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire.

Police called off their two-year investigation into the former surgeon, who worked at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, after being advised by the Crown Prosecution Service that there was no basis for a prosecution.

Mr Maloney believes they should have at least interviewed the disgraced surgeon, who was found guilty by the General Medical Council of botching operations and lying to patients.

The police have insisted that they have no intention of re-opening their investigation into Mr Neale, who managed to work in the NHS for more than a decade despite being struck off in Canada following the deaths of two patients.

Mr Neale worked as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Friarage between 1985 and 1995.

Read more about the Richard Neale scandal here.