A YORK psychiatrist sat a woman patient on his knee and kissed her when she wanted help for a nervous breakdown, a jury has heard.

The woman is the fourth former patient of now-retired Clifton Hospital consultant Michael Haslam to allege at Leeds Crown Court that he behaved sexually towards them.

Earlier, the husband of the third woman patient claimed that his wife had looked like a "zombie" as she told him that Dr Haslam had tried to have sex with her. She was completely traumatised.

"I suspected she had attempted to take her life by cutting her wrists," the husband said.

Haslam, 69, of Crayke, near Easingwold, denies raping and indecently assaulting the third patient and three indecent assaults on the first and second women patients.

The fourth woman alleged that her GP had referred her to Haslam because she had suffered a nervous breakdown following the ending of a long-term relationship. While her parents waited in one building, he took her to another building and up some stairs, probably two flights, into an attic-type room, when he photographed her left hand on what seemed to be a photocopier.

He told her that the image showed her anxiety levels and she trusted that he knew what he was talking about.

"He sat down on the floor, he sat me on his knee and he started kissing me. It went on for a few minutes, five, ten minutes," said the fourth woman.

She said she agreed to be kissed, because she was vulnerable after her relationship break-up and did not know what she was doing.

"It was something, I think, to show me affection, but obviously in a very inappropriate way," said the fourth woman.

Earlier, describing a morning meeting with his wife in 1988, the husband alleged: "She was in a state I have never seen her in before. She was acting like a zombie. She was shaking, trembling and there were tears in her eyes. She looked dreadful."

He had difficulty persuading her to speak and when she did, he claimed that Dr Haslam had taken her upstairs and attempted to have sex with her.

In cross-examination he agreed that he had told police his wife had told him Dr Haslam had "messed about with her".

The trial continues.

Updated: 10:40 Friday, November 21, 2003