A FORMER North-East surgeon has been found guilty of appalling errors in three operations.

Nalini Senchaudhuri left one woman walking with sticks after a procedure to straighten toes went disastrously wrong.

A male patient was unable to lift his arm after receiving treatment to a damaged shoulder.

The General Medical Council heard how the surgeon also watched as a junior colleague he was training drilled five holes in a woman's thigh bone when only one was needed.

Senchaudhuri, who was a locum at Bishop Auckland General Hospital, County Durham, was found guilty of carrying out "inadequate and inappropriate" surgery on two patients, and performing an inadequate operation on the third. He was cleared of two further allegations of blunders in the operating theatre, including alleged failure to wait for an anaesthetic to take effect, by the GMC's conduct committee.

Senchaudhuri, of Du Cane Court, Balham High Road, south London, had denied any wrongdoing.

The GMC imposed a series of restrictions, including a directive that any surgery he carried out must be supervised.

The restrictions will be reconsidered after 12 months.