PATIENTS of disgraced North Yorkshire gynaecologist Richard Neale have begun legal action to press for a public inquiry.

And the campaigners revealed today that they are launching a petition in support of their case.

The surgeon, who lives near Boroughbridge but worked at one time at Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, was struck off by the General Medical Council last year after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced in the summer that a private inquiry was to be held into the way complaints against the consultant were handled by the NHS.

Former patients want the inquiry to be held in public, and they have also challenged the decision to appoint a senior NHS doctor to chair the inquiry, saying they want the chairman to be independent of the Health Service.

It is understood that the Department of Health has offered to appoint a different chairman but is standing firm against calls for a public inquiry - in the same way as the Government has resisted repeated calls for the Foot and Mouth inquiry to be held in public.

Campaigners handed a 42-page document to the High Court yesterday, seeking a judicial review of the decision to hold the inquiry behind closed doors.

Spokesman Graham Maloney said it was arguing that it would be in the public interest to have a public inquiry.

The application also referred to various aspects of the law and a number of precedents, including the decision to hold the inquiry into killer GP Harold Shipman in public.

He said a petition was to be launched, seeking public support for the calls for a public inquiry, which would be handed to the court at a later date.

Former patients of another disgraced North Yorkshire consultant, former psychiatrist William Kerr, have also been calling for a similar inquiry into his case to be heard in public.

Dr Kerr, of Alne, near Easingwold, was placed on the sex offenders register last year after a jury found at a "hearing of fact" that he had indecently assaulted a patient.

The High Court will shortly decide whether such a hearing of fact should have taken place when Dr Kerr had previously been adjudged unfit to plead or stand trial.

His former patients have also been threatening to go to judicial review. Solicitors Irwin Mitchell, who represent many of them, have held meetings with Department of Health officials to discuss their concerns.

But a spokesman for the firm declined this week to comment on the progress of the talks.

Updated: 08:09 Friday, September 28, 2001