A SURGEON whose blunders led to the death of two patients made errors which could have happened to any experienced doctor, a professor said.

Julian Mason, aged 38, had been "less than perfect" in cutting into a nerve in a four-year-old girl, but was not clumsy.

He was also right not to arrange radiotherapy for two patients after taking out cancerous growths in their neck, said Professor Arnold Maran, of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

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, where he began working in February 1998.

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 responsible for cutting into a major artery in a woman's neck by mistakenly using a laser "like a saw".

The consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon was also caught drinking while on call on three separate occasions, and allegedly failed to respond to his bleeper because he was watching a Manchester United match at Old Trafford.

Mason 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 Professor Maran 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 and he failed to consider radiotherapy.

Professor Maran said the benefits of any radiotherapy outweighed the harm because of the risks of the treatment.

Dr Mason, of Essex Street, Newbury, Berkshire, denies serious professional misconduct.

The hearing continues.