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Doctor suspended over internet porn

A doctor who looked at graphic sexual images on hospital computers has been suspended for nine months after a General Medical Council (GMC) hearing ruled that the pornography he accessed was not illegal.

Dr James Christopher Angel was an anaesthetist at Scarborough Hospital when he looked at explicit sex websites on theatre and departmental computers, the GMC Fitness to Practise Panel in Manchester heard. He was caught in July 2006 by routine monitoring of the hospital trust’s computers and confessed to the misbehaviour.

Two years earlier, while working as an anaesthetist at Wrexham Maelor Hospital, he was acquitted at Mold Crown Court of possessing child porn. He told the court he was not interested in child sex images but confessed to being addicted to pornography. The GMC issued him with a warning in October 2004 but he was not struck off.

Dr Angel had informed the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire National Health Service about the trial when he began working for them, the GMC was told.

Panel chairman Dr Kumar said: “The panel has taken account of the fact that the pornography you accessed did not portray children and was not illegal. It further notes that you have gained some insight into your behaviour and that you are addressing the problems which led to it.”

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