Seventeen former patients of disgraced doctor William Kerr are taking legal action against North Yorkshire Health Authority.

At the same time, the authority is being consulted over the former York psychiatrist's bid for voluntary erasure from the General Medical Council's (GMC) medical register.

Dr Kerr, 75, of Alne, near Easingwold, was placed on the sex offender's register last December after a jury decided he carried out an indecent assault on a patient, but he remains on the register of doctors approved to practice in Britain.

The Evening Press reported last month how the GMC's interim orders committee had met to decide whether to take any action against Dr Kerr, such as suspension from the register. It adjourned the case until later this month, when it said the outcome of an application for voluntary erasure would be known.

The GMC has now written to North Yorkshire Health Authority, to ask whether it is aware of any actions or omissions, or proceedings relating to Dr Kerr.

A spokesman said the authority was preparing to give a factual reply, outlining the history of the Kerr case up to and including the case at Leeds Crown Court last December. At that hearing of fact, Dr Kerr was cleared of two rapes and four indecent assaults, with the jury unable to decide on ten remaining allegations of indecent assault and two of rape. A previous jury had found Dr Kerr unfit to plead.

One former patient, Rosetta Nicholson, whose allegations of indecent assault against Dr Kerr could not be decided upon by the jury, called today for the health authority to give a clear opinion to the GMC on the erasure application and said she believed it should oppose it.

The NHS litigation authority, handling the matter on behalf of North Yorkshire Health Authority, said 17 former patients were taking legal action to date.

Updated: 17:14 Monday, April 09, 2001