ONE of the women claiming to have been indecently assaulted by a psychiatrist in York has alleged that she was also groped by another.

The York woman told a jury at Leeds Crown Court that Dr William Kerr had touched her on several places, including the groin.

"It was just being groped," she said, adding that she had eventually made a complaint to the GMC. She said the incident was very different to the two occasions in 1981 when Michael Haslam is accused of indecently assaulting her.

She claimed that Haslam, who worked at hospitals in York until 1989 and is now retired, had taken off all her clothes and then massaged her with baby oil, eventually touching the genital area.

She said the attack, followed two weeks later by a similar assault, happened at the former Clifton Hospital in 1981.

"Doctor Haslam raised it as something that could help me to relax, because I was quite an anxious individual. I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I tried to think that Dr Haslam was trying to help me." The woman, now in her fifties, said he asked her to lie completely naked on a couch after undressing her. "He was rubbing baby oil on his hands and rubbing it on to me. I was finding it very difficult to relax. He started caressing my breasts and went down to my genital area."

She said she felt quite numb afterwards. "I was trying to think Dr Haslam was trying to do something to help me." She said she went back to see him a fortnight later and was again massaged and indecently assaulted. Asked why she went back for a second time she said: "Because I was trying to believe he was doing something to try and help me."

She said she was being treated by Dr Haslam because of depression caused by bereavement and other crises in her life.

She said she later wrote a letter to a hospital sector administrator complaining about Haslam, but had not felt strong enough then to pursue the complaint.

Under cross-examination by Tom Bayliss QC, she was asked why she had returned to see Haslam again in 1984 and 1987/88, if she had earlier been assaulted. She said it was because she needed help and another psychiatrist she had seen, Dr Peter Kennedy, had been "quite dismissive" of her. She said she would not have seen Haslam again without a nurse being present.

"I suggest the incidents did not happen," said Mr Bayliss. She replied: "Yes, it did happen. The massage sessions did happen."

Haslam, 69, of Crayke, near Easingwold, has denied the two indecent assaults, and also indecently assaulting a second patient and indecently assaulting and raping a third.

The trial continues on Monday.

Updated: 10:38 Friday, November 14, 2003