FORMER patients of disgraced North Yorkshire gynaecologist Richard Neale have been given a boost in their battle for a public inquiry.

Lawyers acting for 48 alleged victims of indecent assault by a Kent GP have won permission to challenge Health Secretary Alan Milburn's decision not to allow the press and public to attend a formal inquiry into how complaints against the doctor went unheeded and uninvestigated for years.

A senior judge ruled that the High Court should decide in a test case whether or not the health authority's refusal of a full public inquiry was "irrational" and in breach of human rights laws.

Dr Clifford Ayling, who was both a GP and hospital locum, was jailed for four years for a catalogue of indecent assaults against female patients.

Ayling, 69, who practised in Folkestone, Kent, was found guilty in December last year of indecently assaulting ten women during intimate examinations between 1991 and 1998.

The inquiry into him was announced at the same time as two other inquiries into the way the NHS handled complaints against Mr Neale, who was struck off by the GMC last year for serious professional misconduct, and also disgraced North Yorkshire psychiatrist William Kerr, who was placed on the sex offenders' register last December for indecently assaulting a woman patient.

Former patients of both North Yorkshire consultants have been pressing for their inquiries to be held in public, in the same way as former patients of Clifford Ayling.

A spokesman for the Neale patients, Graham Maloney, said yesterday's court decision was a "real boost" for them as they proceed with their case, setting an important precedent.

Updated: 14:51 Tuesday, October 09, 2001