A family GP "deliberately terminated" the lives of three of his patients, a court heard today.

Dr Howard Martin, 70, is accused of murdering Frank Moss, Stanley Weldon and Harry Gittins, from near Bishop Auckland, by administering fatal overdoses of morphine.

Opening the case for the Crown, Robert Smith QC told the jury at Teesside Crown Court: ''What the prosecution say is that Dr Martin was not dealing in the interests of his patients but had chosen to terminate their lives.

''The prosecution say that Dr Martin deliberately intended to kill or cause serious harm.''

Mr Smith told the jury that Dr Martin would claim to be ''simply easing suffering''.

He added: ''But the position is not so simple, say the prosecution.''

He said all three patients were seriously ill, although they were not terminally ill.

He added: ''The prosecution is not able to explain the motive as to why Dr Martin chose to terminate the lives of these three patients.

''It was not for Dr Martin to determine when and where they should die.''

The prosecutor said that all three patients had been given massive overdoses of morphine which would have caused them to die within a very short space of time.

Any medical practitioner would know the outcome of administering such doses to their patients, Mr Smith said.

He told the jury: ''The outcome, say the prosecution, was inevitable.''

Mr Smith said that Dr Martin was not simply treating the three men with palliative care - to ease pain and improve quality of life.

''Dr Martin made the deliberate and unlawful decision to end their lives because their time had come to die,'' Mr Smith told the jury of six men and six women.