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

Mr Richard Neale

Former patients told the GMC how they were left in agonising pain, unable to have children and with permanent injury after being treated by Mr Neale.

In total, Mr Neale faced 35 charges of clinical incompetence, professional negligence and extreme rudeness. The GMC, which has considered the case for a month, found the facts proven in all but one case.

While giving evidence, Mr Neale, who was barred from practice in Canada in 1985 following the death of two of his patients, apologised to his victims.

But he also wept as he blamed two former patients and the media for waging a campaign against him.

The consultant complained of the "ordeal" he and his family had been through as he read a rambling 55-minute statement.

Mr Neale told the 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."

Media battering

The battering I have received has been hard to bear

Mr Richard Neale

Mr Neale said he recognised that following the high media profile of his case the public had no confidence in his ability.

"The battering I have received has been hard to bear and has knocked my own self confidence and I feel a great sense of injustice."

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."

Mr Neale, from Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, said he was sorry for his errors in treatment and diagnosis of some patients.

"I sincerely regret some of the clinical judgements, decisions I made which have been shown in the cold light of retrospective analysis to be clearly erroneous.

"I can only say that they were made with the best of intentions.

"Finally I regret failing to ask the advice of colleagues when I should have."

Mr Neale said the group of 10 patients who had surgical complications should be seen against his overall workload of some 12,000 patients - a problem rate of around 0.14%.