An incurable cancer sufferer was left to bleed to death by a surgeon during an operation which should never have been carried out, a jury was told.

Consultant urological surgeon Hurais Ramis Syed, 48, has gone on trial at Leeds Crown Court, charged with the manslaughter of pensioner Gladys Allen, on January 28, 2000.

The allegations of gross negligence listed in the charge include a claim that, after operating on 78-year-old Mrs Allen's cancerous kidney, he failed to close her abdomen himself and left the operating theatre, directing a trainee surgeon to complete the closure when she was still bleeding internally.

Syed, of Princess Avenue, Acton, London, has denied the charge. He was working at Dewsbury and District Hospital when the operation on Mrs Allen, of Clover Hill, Liversedge, took place.

At the start of the trial yesterday, prosecution counsel Paul Worsley QC, told the jury of eight men and four women: "This case is about a death in hospital - a death on the operating table.

"A death which, the prosecution say, should never have occurred. A death which, say the prosecution, the defendant - a surgeon - is responsible for.

"Death came about because Mr Syed, the surgeon, embarked upon an operation which he should never have started upon and then, having embarked upon it, he allowed his elderly patient to bleed so excessively, it caused her heart to fail and she bled to death. It was a death, we submit, caused by his gross negligence."

Mr Worsley told the court how Syed graduated in 1978 from Karachi and was admitted as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in Glasgow, in 1984.

Syed received a Diploma in Urology in 1987 and worked in Saudi Arabia before returning to the UK in 1997. He was then appointed as locum consultant urologist at Dewsbury and District Hospital.

Mr Worsley said Syed had previously undertaken many operations of the type which he carried out on Mrs Allen.

The court heard how Mrs Allen, a widow, lived alone and was quite deaf as well as being a diabetes sufferer. In March 1999, Syed carried out keyhole surgery on her to remove a cancerous bladder tumour. Four months later, the bladder was inspected through a telescope and there was no recurrence of the tumour.

But on January 11, 2000, after being admitted to Dewsbury and District Hospital feeling unwell, an ultrasound scan discovered a large solid mass extending into Mrs Allen's left kidney. It appeared to be cancer - of the same type as the bladder tumour - in the lining of the kidney .

Mr Worsley told the jury: "The prosecution suggest the mass was so extensive as shown by the ultrasound and CT scans that no operation should ever have been undertaken in a lady of 78 who was not in good health. This operation was a non-starter. Her condition was incurable."

The case continues.