A LEADING surgeon who quashed a patient's complaint against disgraced gynaecologist Richard Neale told a tribunal he felt the General Medical Council (GMC) "did not need to be bothered" with another case.

Professor James Drife argued that the extra case would have made no difference because the former North Yorkshire consultant was already being investigated.

Professor Drife, from Leeds University Medical School, was giving evidence on the second day of his appearance before a GMC fitness to practise panel in Manchester.

The professor, who was a leading member of the GMC until he stepped down in the summer, was asked to consider a patient's complaint against Neale in 2000 in his role as a medical screener of complaints for the GMC.

Even though he knew Neale, and had previously given the surgeon employment references, he went ahead without telling the GMC registrar.

Prof Drife said that by that time Neale was about to be charged with misconduct in relation to his treatment of patients and he did not believe the GMC needed to be bothered with the extra matter.

The professor also faces separate allegations that he gave one verbal and one written job references for Neale - which allowed the disgraced surgeon to operate on women in Leicester and the Isle of Wight after he left Northallerton under a cloud - without mentioning to hospital officials that Neale had been cautioned by police over an incident in public toilets in Richmond.

Prof Drife said: "Appearing before the fitness to practise panel is, for a doctor, not as bad as, say, causing harm to one of your patients.

"But barring that, this is the worst experience of my life.

"There are times when you feel your career is over and, given that kind of emotional reaction to what is happening, I do not feel that my fitness to practise has been impaired."

Prof Drife said he knew Richard Neale had received the caution for an incident in a men's public toilet, but did not believe this was relevant or affected his abilities as a clinician.

He told the panel that when he provided the references it was "normal practice" to restrict them to professional matters only.

Prof Drife is accused of falling seriously below the standards expected of a medical practitioner and painting Neale in a "more favourable light" than was justified.

The 58-year-old denies that his actions impair his fitness to practise.

Gynaecologist Neale was struck off by the GMC in July 2000 after it heard how he put women through agonising pain.

He was found guilty of botching operations on 11 women between 1985 and 1998.

Neale had been struck off the medical register in Canada in 1985, for serious incompetence involving the deaths of two patients, but he was allowed to practise when he arrived in the UK, prompting criticism of the GMC from some of his British victims.

Read more about the Richard Neale scandal here.