Psychiatrist William Kerr told a patient she must submit to his advances - or she would never see her children again, a jury was told.

The woman alleged that her husband wanted custody of their children and had been saying she was an unfit mother when she went to see Dr Kerr at a hospital annexe in Ripon.

"I went to Dr Kerr to prove I was fit enough to look after my children. I loved them," she told Leeds Crown Court.

"He used to close the door and get hold of me. He used to kiss me, on my neck, face and mouth. I pushed him away and told him not to do it. I didn't want him touching me.

"He said it was part of my therapy. He used to say if I didn't do what he wanted, I would lose the children and would never see them again.

"He said I should be a loving person. I had to prove I could love other people before I could love my own children.

"I used to go home and burn my clothes because they were filthy. He had touched them."

The distressed woman alleged that on the last occasion she saw Dr Kerr, he had rubbed himself up and down against her.

She said she had complained afterwards to her solicitor, who had said he would get Dr Kerr struck off. "I said he couldn't do that. I might have lost the girls. Nobody would have believed me."

The woman, whom Dr Kerr is alleged to have indecently assaulted, was giving evidence on the ninth day yesterday of a special "hearing of fact" at Leeds Crown Court, intended to determine whether Dr Kerr carried out four rapes and 15 indecent assaults on former women patients between the 1960s and 1980s.

A different jury had previously decided that Dr Kerr, now aged 75, of Alne, near Easingwold, was unfit to plead because of mental impairment. But he had denied all the allegations during police interviews.

A retired police officer and a retired GP said yesterday that a different woman patient, also alleged to have been indecently assaulted, had complained to them in 1979 about Dr Kerr's conduct. Former Knaresborough Detective Sergeant Terence Storey said she would not give him details and further investigation had been impossible.

Dr John Wade said he had made an appointment to see a different consultant psychiatrist, a Dr Michael Haslam, after the woman complained. He had had a conversation with Dr Haslam and then left the matter with him.

The hearing continues.