FORMER patients of disgraced North Yorkshire gynaecologist Richard Neale were today taking their battle for a public inquiry to the High Court.
They were challenging Health Secretary Alan Milburn's decision to hold an inquiry into the way the NHS handled complaints against the surgeon behind closed doors.
The patients, led by Sheila Wright-Hogeland, from near Kirkbymoorside, claim that only a full-scale public inquiry will get to the bottom of a scandal which ruined many women's lives.
Mr Neale, of Langthorpe, near Boroughbridge, who practised at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, between 1985 and 1995, was struck off in 2000 for botching a series of operations. He had previously been struck off in Canada after the death of a patient.
The patients' judicial review challenge is backed by the Patients' Association, the Association of Community Health Councils and several MPs, including former Tory leader and Richmond MP William Hague.
Updated: 11:14 Tuesday, February 05, 2002
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