A nurse at Armley Jail described her shock at seeing a prison doctor kneeling in front of a naked inmate in his consultation room.

Dr John Anthony Sykes, of Cleckheaton, is appearing in front of the General Medical Council's Professional Conduct Committee in Man-chester to investigate whether he carried out intimate examinations - while he was a prison doctor at Armley - without clinical justification.

It is alleged his actions were indecent, unprofessional and an abuse of his professional position.

Nurse Julie Bedford told the committee that in December 2000 she went to speak to Dr Sykes in his consulting room and looked through the observation porthole first.

"When I looked through the first time, Dr Sykes was sitting behind his desk," she said.

"Inmate C appeared to me to be pulling up his pants, fiddling with the waist as if fastening his trousers and then sitting back down."

She thought the consultation was coming to an end, so waited outside the door.

"When I looked through the second time, Inmate C was standing with his back to the porthole and had no top clothing on and his trousers were between his knees and ankles somewhere.

"His legs were slightly apart and his hands were behind his head. I could see Dr Sykes' jacket. His shoulders were at about waist-height and he was facing Patient C."

When asked by Robert Seabrook QC, representing the GMC, how she felt, she replied: "Shocked, because it just seemed totally inappropriate.

"I asked another member of staff who was walking by to have a look because I couldn't believe it. I thought I was seeing things."

She said Dr Sykes, of Scholes Lane in Scholes, "seemed really quite flushed and had sweat on his top lip" when he left his consultation room about ten minutes later.

"There's a way of examining a person in my opinion, leaving dignity," she said.

"I don't see any reason why he needed to have his shirt off. I saw shoulders at waist height which I don't think is appropriate with a naked man."

The committee heard a statement from Ian Whittaker, Healthcare Manager at Armley, who sat in on a meeting between Dr Sykes and Senior Medical Officer Dr Brendan Carroll.

He said Dr Sykes felt the nurses "had it in for him".

Dr Eric Monterio, consultant physician in genito-urinary medicine, visited Armley once a week to treat inmates.

He told the hearing that when genitals were being examined, the patient would lie on a couch and would not be examined standing up. "From a patient dignity point of view, they would have their shirt lifted up slightly so only the genital area was exposed."

The hearing continues.