A SURGEON at a scandal hit hospital is facing a General Medical Council inquiry over allegations he threatened junior staff.

Dr Lucas Van Vuuren, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Friarage in Northallerton, has been called before a preliminary hearing of the council next month.

The GMC will decide whether he has a case to answer and could then proceed to a full professional conduct hearing.

It has the power to strike doctors off the medical register indefinitely.

The Northern Echo understands that complaints have been made over Dr Van Vuuren's aggressive behaviour towards junior doctors.

Some of those affected have since left the Friarage, which was taken over by the South Tees NHS Trust last month.

A former Friarage employee, who did not want to be named, claimed hospital bosses had been "inactive" over the issue.

Last month the trust confirmed that a consultant had been suspended pending an investigation into "allegations of a non-clinical nature".

The trust has refused to confirm or deny whether the person suspended was Dr Van Vuuren, who is originally from South Africa.

It says no evidence was found to substantiate the allegations and the member of staff is now back at work.

The Friarage has been rocked by controversy in recent years.

Shamed gynaecologist Richard Neale botched a string of operations over ten years before he was finally struck off by the GMC in July 2000.

Mr Neale was appointed as a senior consultant despite having been struck off the medical register by the Canadian authorities.

He later received a £100,000 pay off and a glowing reference allowing him to continue to practice.

Fellow gynaecologist Neil Hebblethwaite was suspended from the Friarage after a patient with whom he had an affair made a number of allegations against him.

He was formally dismissed but later re-instated by the trust on appeal.

Yesterday an approach by the Echo to Dr Van Vuuren through the hospital trust found him unavailable for comment.

Reporters calling at his home in Thirlby, near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, have previously been turned away.