A GP has been struck off after a tribunal ruled he sexually assaulted a patient and pressured her into a relationship by prescribing her excessive amounts of medication.

Dr Goskel Celikko, 76, groped his vulnerable patient at an appointment in November 1999, before taking her out for lunch, kissing her and ensuing a sexual relationship.

He used his authority to supply the patient, who was 22 at the time and had a history of mental health issues, with excessive amounts of medication during their relationship.

This continued until August 2000 before she was forced to “literally leave the country” to escape, the hearing heard.

The woman, known as Patient A, told the hearing: “I was in floods of tears and I was asking him to help me as I was very depressed and lonely."

Dr Celikkol, who was aware of her recent break up with her partner and her mental health history, then prescribed her more anti-depressants and asked her out for lunch.

Patient A said: “I agreed as I naively though he asked me as he could see how alone I was. I did not think he would make any physical advances towards me."

However after the lunch, Dr Celikkol, of Blackpool, kissed his vulnerable patient in his car.

The victim said: “I was gobsmacked. I don’t recall any conversation we had, but he was very forceful. I had no choice but to kiss him.”

The pair then began a sexual relationship, which lasted almost a year, the tribunal was told.

Dr Celikkol often supplied the patient with double the maximum dose of Zolpidem, a sleeping pill used to treat insomnia, putting her at risk of dependency and overdose.

Patient A said: “I hated the situation. He was about 30 years older than me so I had no attraction to him whatsoever.

“I didn’t want to have sex but I felt trapped in a situation I didn’t know how to get out of because he was also prescribing me with medication that I really needed at that time.

“Despite me expressing I didn’t want to, we always seemed to end up having sex anyway and then he would leave to go home to his family.”

This continued until Patient A decided to move to Scotland in August 2000, in order to leave the relationship.

However, the pair stayed in contact and Dr Celikkol continued to supply the woman with medication illegally until 2007.

Patient A said Dr Celikkol would send her sleeves of Zolpidem in the post, and when she returned to visit Blackpool he would prescribe her medication under a false address.

Before the incident, Dr Celikkol qualified as a doctor at Istanbul University, before coming to the UK in 1971 and beginning his career as a GP in 1981.

He then went on to establish his own practice in 1984 before taking over Grange Park Surgery in Blackpool in1990, where the assault later took place.

The tribunal report describes him as a long standing General Practitioner in the Blackpool area.

He ran his own out of hours service, attended all home visits, and was the sole practitioner at his two surgeries, caring for approximately 2,500 patients.

De Celikkol denies allegations that he supplied Patient A with medication From August 2000 to December 2007 and it was submitted on his behalf that he was no longer in practice at the time of the hearing, after retiring in 2018.

The Tribunal ruled to erase him from the medical register, concluding: “This was not a mainly serious breach of good medical practice.

"The totality of the matters found by the Tribunal points to Dr Celikkol’s misconduct being fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.”