A disgraced psychiatrist who sexually molested a female patient 16 years ago faces a further year-long suspension while awaiting a disciplinary hearing before the General Medical Council.

Dr William Kerr, aged 77, was unfit to stand trial because of the brain wasting disease which affects him.

But, after a fact-finding hearing, a York Crown Court jury decided in December 2000 that he had indecently assaulted the patient when she consulted him at a hospital in Ripon, North Yorkshire in 1986.

Kerr was cleared of two rapes and four indecent assaults, while the jury was unable to agree verdicts on 12 other indecency counts which were left on the file.

Kerr - from Easingwold, near York - received an absolute discharge, but was ordered to be placed on the sex offenders' register for five years. He later challenged the jury's findings in the Appeal Court as a breach of his fundamental human rights, but his case was dismissed in October last year.

The General Medical Council suspended him from practice in April this year for 18 months - the maximum period it had power to impose without court sanction.

But today top judge, Mr Justice Keith, said it was "appropriate" to extend that period for a further 12 months, pending a full disciplinary hearing.

The General Medical Council's barrister, Dinah Rose, told the judge there was no clear evidence about Kerr's current medical condition.

The disciplinary charges before the GMC relate to his employment by the North Yorkshire Health Authority between 1967 and 1988, and comprise allegations of "improper, indecent and inappropriate examinations" on 12 female patients.

Kerr's lawyers opposed the 12-month extension, citing his declining health and the long delay in dealing with the disciplinary charges.

But Mr Justice Keith observed: "The allegations against Dr Kerr are extremely serious, all the more so because as a psychiatrist he was in a particular position of trust to particularly vulnerable women.

"I am extremely satisfied that public confidence in the medical profession would be seriously undermined if the GMC were seen to be content for his registration to continue pending the determination of complaints of this gravity against him".

Dr Kerr had also applied for "voluntary erasure" from the medical register on grounds of ill health, but that had also been refused "in the public interest" by the GMC's Interim Orders Committee.

After the judgement lawyers for the GMC said they hoped to convene the disciplinary hearing in March next year.