A world-renowned child abuse expert has been suspended from both her consultant and teaching posts following a complaint to the powerful medical disciplinary body, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Dr Camille San Lazaro, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle, and a senior lecturer at Newcastle University, has been suspended until an independent probe into her work is carried out.

It follows an official complaint to the General Medical Council (GMC) about Dr San Lazaro by two former nursery workers, Dawn Reed and Christopher Lillie.

Ms Reed and Mr Lillie, who worked at Shieldfield Nursery, in Newcastle, were each awarded £200,000 in libel damages after suing the four authors of a report which wrongly branded them paedophiles.

The pair were brought to the brink of suicide after the independent report, entitled Abuse in the Early Years, was commissioned by Newcastle City Council.

Dr San Lazaro, who lectures in paediatric forensic medicine at Newcastle University, examined 53 Shieldfield children. She said several of them had signs of sexual or other abuse and her findings were put in the report. But at the High Court libel case earlier this year, she admitted there were inaccuracies in what she had written and that she had given "exaggerated" accounts to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board after acting as an "advocate" to help parents with claims.

In his 700-page ruling, Mr Justice Eady, who had condemned the report as a "shambles", said the four authors "clearly fell under the spell" of Dr Lazaro.

The judge described her as "unbalanced, obsessive and lacking in judgement".

Last night, Ms Reed and Mr Lillie's solicitor, Richard Osbourne, said of the pair's complaint to the GMC: "I think the point is they're not out to get this woman, they just believe that someone needs to look at what she's done. She has brought it upon herself."

Dr San Lazaro, who has been a paediatrician for more than 30 years, has published widely in the area of sexual abuse and lectured in Britain and abroad.

She is a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and was awarded an OBE in 1999 for services in the care of sexually abused children.

It is understood that the GMC's confidential preliminary proceedings committee (PCT) will look at the complaint at the end of January.

The committee may decide to close the investigation or to have a public hearing before the Professional conduct committee.

A spokeswoman for the GMC could not comment on the complaint.

The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust said in a statement yesterday: "Dr Camille San Lazaro is suspended from clinical practice pending an independent review of her practice." The Trust declined to comment further.

A spokeswoman for Newcastle University said Dr San Lazaro's position at the university was conditional upon her status with the Trust.

"When she was suspended by the Trust she was unable to fufill that condition.

"Dr Lazaro has therefore been suspended from her university role pending the outcome of the independent review of her clinical practice."

Dr San Lazaro was unavailable for comment.