VICTIMS of disgraced surgeon Richard Neale were reduced to laughter yesterday - when he offered to undergo retraining so he could relaunch his career.

Former patients of the gynaecologist - who is almost certain to be struck off next week - were listening at the General Medical Council as he wept as he tried to save his career.

His offer to undergo retraining and return to medical practice echoes his behaviour in Canada. In the mid-1980s, he opted for retraining rather than a disciplinary hearing following the death of a woman patient there.

When another patient subsequently died, he returned to Britain and got a job as a consultant at The Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, North Yorkshire. He was struck off in Canada in his absence.

His past finally caught up with him on Thursday, when the GMC disciplinary panel found 34 out of 35 allegations made against him proven.

Sixty women have complained to The Friarage about Neale. Twenty-nine women died under his care at the hospital and three deaths are being investigated by North Yorkshire police.

Last night, another three women had come forward claiming they were victims of Mr Neale's Friarage career.

Yesterday, Neale finally apologised to his victims - then launched into a defence of his career.

Neale, 52, wept as he blamed two former patients and the media for waging a campaign against him. The consultant then complained of the "ordeal" he and his family had been through as he read a rambling 55-minute statement.

Neale told the GMC's professional conduct committee, sitting in London, he was a "flawed and very humbled gynaecologist".

"So what am I, a surgeon who put his patients' best interests at heart? I hope you will believe that. A surgeon whose clinical decisions were based on an endeavour to help his patients? I hope you will believe that. A surgeon who had his faults? I accept the criticisms made of me.

"A surgeon whose skills were satisfactory? The experts I've quoted to you say at the very least my overall performance was satisfactory.

"What do I think about my performance? Well, it is difficult to be objective about your own performance at the best of times, let alone when one is demonised by the media.

"My feeling is that I was just an average surgeon, not good and not all bad."

Neale went on: "I fully recognise that given the incredible media exposure the public has no confidence in me."

Some of his former patients in the public gallery gasped as he said: "I am angry with the media, who have been so partisan, so consistently inaccurate in their reporting, and so utterly lacking in objectivity.

"The media comments have been fuelled by the campaign against me personally by just two patients."

The surgeon said: "It has been a terrible ordeal for my wife and family and I cannot bear to tell you how we first all felt when a national daily newspaper carried my large picture on the front page with a big headline 'death doctor' which my nine-year-old son saw in racks in the supermarket."

Neale said he was sorry for his errors in treatment and diagnosis of some patients. "I sincerely regret some of the clinical judgments . . . I can only say that they were made with the best of intentions."

He added: "Only two of the patients now giving evidence to the GMC made a complaint to the hospital contemporaneously. It is almost certain that the others would have taken no action at all had it not been for adverse media publicity."

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