Sex attack GP seeks legal review

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/kent/6724961.stm

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Disgraced former GP Clifford Ayling is seeking a judicial review into a government report on his conduct.

Ayling who worked in Folkestone, Kent, was jailed for four years in 2000 for 13 counts of indecent assault on 10 women patients between 1991 and 1998.

He has claimed a Department of Health (DoH) report into his conduct was full of errors and had blackened his name.

But one of his victims reacted angrily to the move, and said it would force her to relive her ordeal.

Angela Hodges, of Folkestone, who testified in court against Ayling, said: "I don't know what purpose this is serving.

His reputation has been blackened by that conviction not really by any reports Sarah Harman, victims' solicitor

"Why doesn't he just go away in a corner and crawl away like everyone wants him to. It still affects me to today."

The DoH commissioned a review in to how the NHS handled allegations about the conduct of Ayling following his conviction.

The report published in 2004 said a catalogue of complaints made against him - including some from nursing staff - were not properly investigated.

But Ayling told BBC South East Today: "There are so many gross errors in the report and I feel that the public have got a right to know how it is that the Department of Health have managed to publish such a report.

"I have maintained from the very outset that I am innocent, despite the courts."

Sarah Harman, solicitor for Ayling's victims, said: "He was convicted in a criminal court of sexually abusing many of his former patients and that conviction stands.

"His reputation has been blackened by that conviction not really by any reports or any complaints of the women subsequently."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health confirmed they had been served legal papers.