DETECTIVES will decide next month whether a disgraced surgeon should face prosecution over the deaths of three patients.

North Yorkshire Police have spent more than a year looking into the deaths of three patients who died while in the care of struck-off gynaecologist Richard Neale.

Sources close to the inquiry said detectives would sit down with Crown Prosecution Service lawyers and decide whether there was a case to answer next month.

Last July, Mr Neale was struck off by the GMC's Professional Conduct Committee.

Mr Neale was found guilty of performing operations without consent, sub-standard surgery and unnecessary procedures. The 54-year-old former consultant at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, was also found to have lied about his qualifications.

Last night, it also emerged that Mr Neale is facing potentially ruinous new damages claims from Canada.

He is already being sued by patients in the UK and is under investigation by police on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is now 17 years since Mr Neale left Canada. But last week, lawyers acting for more than 30 of Mr Neale's former patients in Canada served a writ on him.

The writ is in the name of Pat Ball, a 64-year-old woman who formed a support group for victims of Richard Neale in Canada.

Mrs Ball, who lives in Whitby, Ontario, is part of a class action, representing other women who say that the surgeon botched operations.

The Canadians came forward and formed a support group after seeing a television documentary about Mr Neale.

More than 60 other British women, who were NHS patients of Mr Neale, are awaiting compensation after suing the Northallerton hospital and several other NHS hospitals.

A number of his private patients are also suing.

Most are from North Yorkshire and the North-East.

Detectives in Ontario are also investigating allegations made against Mr Neale.

Before Mr Neale arrived in Northallerton in 1985, he worked in two hospitals in Canada.

At the first, he was found to have shown a lack of judgement when a patient died after he operated on her against the advice of his superiors.

He left the second hospital after using an unauthorised drug on a pregnant woman, who subsequently died during labour.

As a result of this second death, Canadian medical authorities struck him off the medical register.

The UK General Medical Council and Yorkshire Regional Health Authority were both told Mr Neale had been struck off in Canada but chose to take no action at that time.

It was only after ex-Friarage patients formed an action group and put pressure on the authorities that the GMC suspended Mr Neale.

Graham Maloney, spokes-man for the UK victims of Richard Neale, said: "We are very pleased that Neale's Canadian past is catching up with him."

A spokesman for Mr Neale said he had no comment to make at this stage.