Former York psychiatrist William Kerr abused the trust placed in him by 15 vulnerable patients by raping or indecently assaulting them, a court heard.

And when one of the women threatened to report him, he allegedly told her: "There's no point. The state you are in, who would believe you? Would they believe you, or me?"

A jury at Leeds Crown Court was told that some women did complain to their GPs, but the doctors did nothing, thinking their patients were unreliable.

Paul Worsley QC, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the vulnerable patients had believed Dr Kerr could cure them of their different problems.

"They felt inadequate and unable to assert themselves," he said.

"They desperately wanted to be cured and believed Dr Kerr could cure them. They trusted him completely.

"He took advantage of their feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Afterwards, they felt unclean, ashamed, humiliated because they had committed these acts with him. They felt they would not be believed if they spoke out against him.

"He reinforced that view."

Dr Kerr, now 75, of Alne, near Easingwold, is alleged to have carried out four rapes and 15 indecent assaults on a total of 15 women patients between the 1960s and 1980s at York, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon, Newton-on-Ouse and Ferrensby.

A jury decided in April he was not fit to plead because of mental impairment, and so a different jury is now seeking to determine at a special hearing whether he did the alleged acts. Before the jury was sworn in yesterday, the court was told that Dr Kerr had lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that the hearing was an abuse of his human rights.

Mr Worsley said Dr Kerr had been a consultant psychiatrist in North Yorkshire for more than 20 years, seeing patients at Clifton Hospital, York, and also hospitals and clinics at Harrogate and Ripon.

Mr Worsley listed the alleged incidents one by one. He said that in one case, a woman had gone to Dr Kerr to seek his consent for an abortion and had been advised to co-operate or he would not sign the papers for the termination to go ahead. He later told her there was no point in reporting him because she would not be believed.

He said another woman had been physically sick after being forced to perform a sexual act with Dr Kerr. The doctor told her: "This is our secret. You cannot tell anyone."

He said Dr Kerr had taken a great risk.

"It may be that the risk was part of the excitement for him. He was able to exert complete power over these ladies." He suggested Dr Kerr was "grooming" the women, touching them to see how they would react and, if they didn't complain, he would go further.

He said the patients had different problems and came from different social backgrounds.

"They had nothing in common save this: they were all patients of Dr William Kerr and were all sexually abused by Dr William Kerr."

The hearing continues today.