DISGRACED former psychiatrist William Kerr has died - only weeks after his wife Beryl Bromham passed away.

Their deaths come just over five years after Kerr was found by a jury at a finding-of-fact hearing to have indecently assaulted a former patient.

The Government is to announce far-reaching health service reforms this summer, following a major inquiry into how the NHS handled complaints in the 1970s and 1980s about Kerr and another former North Yorkshire psychiatrist, Michael Haslam.

Last summer, a 955-page inquiry report said that at least 67 former patients had now made allegations of "sexualised behaviour" by Kerr.

It said that, time and again, complaints about him and Haslam had fallen on deaf ears, and it made more than 70 recommendations to the Government to prevent the abuse of vulnerable patients in future.

Kerr, 80, of Easingwold, North Yorkshire, whose wife was also a psychiatrist, had been ill for many years.

Phil Willis, the Harrogate and Knaresborough Lib-Dem MP who campaigned at length on behalf of former patients, said: "Obviously, the death of William Kerr brings to an end one of the most unhappy periods for psychiatry in the North Yorkshire area.

"Whilst I don't want to comment on his passing, I do want to say that I hope the women who suffered at his hands can now get on with their lives."