A member of the General Medical Council today appeared before one of the council's own disciplinary panels over job references he gave for a disgraced surgeon.

Professor James Drife, from the University of Leeds Medical School, is accused of painting Richard Neale in a ''more favourable light'' than was justified.

He provided an oral reference for Neale to Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1995 and a written reference to St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight in 1996.

In both he made no mention of being aware that Neale had been cautioned by police for an incident in a public toilet in Richmond, North Yorkshire, the GMC panel was told.

Vivian Robinson QC, counsel for the GMC, said that Professor Drife's actions fell below the standards expected of a medical practitioner.

Mr Robinson told the Fitness to Practise panel sitting in Manchester that if the allegations against the professor were upheld they would amount to misconduct because his behaviour had been ''improper and unprofessional''.

Professor Drife, from Park Lane, Roundhay, Leeds, denies that his fitness to practise is impaired.

Gynaecologist Neale was struck off by the GMC in July 2000 after it heard how he put women through agonising pain and, in some cases, left them unable to have children.

He was found guilty of botching operations on 12 women between 1985 and 1998.

Between 1985 and 1998 Neale worked mainly at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, but later had spells in Leicester and at the private Portland Hospital in central London.

He had been struck off the medical register in Canada in 1985 for serious incompetence involving the deaths of two patients. But he was still allowed to practise when he arrived in the UK, prompting criticism of the GMC from some of his British victims.