A DOCTOR has been struck off the medical register after the General Medical Council (GMC) branded his behaviour as a 'disgusting and gross departure from the standards expected.'

Reports from staff working at his surgeries detailing smutty remarks, temper tantrums and fraud has resulted in County Durham GP Ashok Bhagat, 52, being found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the GMC last week. He denied serious professional misconduct over a string of incidents between 1995 and 1999.

Bhagat, who had surgeries in Newton Aycliffe and Shildon, failed to attend the hearing and neighbours near his home on Eastfields Road, Newton Aycliffe, said he had not been seen at his address for several weeks.

At the hearing in Manchester, staff recounted how he had terrorised them.

Practice manager Betty Costello, from Shildon, had worked at the surgery for 25 years but feared 'physical violence' at the hands of the doctor. She quit her job in tears after he threw a glass of water and a plastic chair at her in a fit of temper.

Bhagat offered another member of staff, a 22-year-old receptionist, an £100 wage advance in return for sex and made other sexual advances. The mother-of-three was also a patient.

Counsel for the GMC also said a patient, known only as Mrs Morris, lost a leg to a deep vein thrombosis because Bhagat decided she could wait two hours before admission to hospital - then offered no reason for the delay.

In June 2000, Bhagat was jailed for nine months after he defrauded Durham Health Authority of £6,000 by writing false prescriptions with chemist Zia ul Haq, of M and M Chemists in Shildon, who was also convicted of claiming between £17,00 and £53,000.

In December 2000 the GMC gave the doctor an 18-month interim suspension from his medical duties 'to protect the public pending a full investigation.'

In concluding its ruling, the GMC panel described his behaviour as 'particularly abhorrent' for a member of the medical profession.

The committee added: "Taking these events as a whole, including the foul language and aggressive, threatening behaviour used on a number of occasions, the committee consider that Dr Bhagat's conduct amounted to a disgusting and gross departure from the standards expected from a registered medical practitioner."