A DOCTOR with two convictions - the first for stalking a hospital consultant and the second for giving false information when applying for jobs - is due to appeal against being struck off at the Privy Council today.

A professional conduct committee of the General Medical Council previously heard that Dr Michael Donnelly, 54, of Wolsingham, County Durham, had admitted the majority of the allegations, many of which his counsel Mary O'Rourke attributed to his skewed judgement at the time.

Announcing the committee's decision to strike him off, chairman Mary Clark Glass said that Dr Donnelly showed blatant disregard for the GMC's code of conduct.

He had also displayed a serious lack of judgement, arrogance and self-deceit, she said.

The committee heard how Dr Donnelly had first met a female consultant at a British Medical Association meeting in 1985.

They met again ten years later while she was working in Scotland and started a relationship which ended in 1998.

In the summer of the following year, Dr Donnelly started a three-month campaign of harassment against the woman.

In 2001, Dr Donnelly appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court where he was sentenced to a two-year probation order and ordered to pay the consultant £1,000 in compensation when he pleaded guilty to committing a breach of the peace.

In May last year, Dr Donnelly was convicted at Teesside Crown Court for dishonestly obtaining an advantage by working as a doctor when he had been suspended from practise by the GMC, pending a disciplinary hearing surrounding the harassment case in Scotland.

At the crown court, he was sentenced to a Community Punishment order for 240 hours and ordered to pay costs of £1,900