A SURGEON whose mistakes led to the death of two patients made errors which could have happened to any experienced doctor, the GMC was told.

Julian Mason, 38, who also cut into a Blackburn with Darwen Council social worker's artery by mistakenly using a laser like "a saw", denies serious professional misconduct.

The hearing was told that he had been "less than perfect" in cutting into a nerve of a four-year-old girl but was not clumsy.

He was also right not to arrange radiotherapy for two patients after taking our cancerous growths in their neck, according to Professor Arnold Maran.

Mason, now a psychiatrist in Oxfordshire, is accused of irresponsible treatment of nine patients and poor treatment of another woman left scarred by allegedly unnecessary surgery at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

He accidentally tore a nerve in a man's throat and caused blood loss that led to a fatal heart attack.

In another case he was irresponsible for cutting into a major artery in a woman's neck by mistakenly using a laser "like a saw."

The consultant ENT surgeon was also caught drinking while on call on three separate conditions and allegedly failed to respond to his bleeper because he was watching a Manchester United match at Old Trafford, the hearing was told.

Mason, of Essex Street, Newbury, operated on the four-year-old girl in February, 1999 without confirming that she needed surgery and damaged a facial nerve.

It is claimed his surgery was "clumsy" but Prof Maran, of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, said it was "probably not a disgrace to do it."

"It is less than perfect but I think all of us have done that sort of thing. It would be a disgrace not to recognise you have done it and take some form of reparative action. Mr Mason did so.

"If you are peeling the growth off you could tear it, nick it. To cut it in two would be a lot worse."

In another case it is claimed Mason damaged a 41-year-old's facial nerve while trying to remove a growth in August, 1999 but failed to consider radiotherapy.

Prof Maran said the benefits of any radiotherapy had to be weighed against the risks of the treatment.

"Although it is advised if there is a risk of recurrent, the head and neck is a sensitive area. To radiate a 40-year-old leads to risk of a radiation tumour 20 years later."

He said it would also be inappropriate in the case of a 77-year-old patient who had a growth removed from a gland.

"I don't think any radiologist would have agreed to radiotherapy. The likelihood it was a benign tumour was extremely high."

The committee heard that Dr Mason worked as an ear, nose and throat specialist in Nottingham University Hospital for six years before moving to Bolton in February, 1998.

He is now working in old-age psychiatry at the Fairmile Hospital in Oxfordshire and has no intention of resuming work as a surgeon.

The hearing continues.