A consultant surgeon claimed a patient "just faded away" despite her bleeding to death on the operating table having lost half the blood in her body, a Court heard.

Leeds Crown Court was told how urologist Hurais Syed, 48, cut an artery "blind" while removing 78-year-old Gladys Allen's left kidney, causing her to lose two litres of blood.

Syed left a trainee surgeon to close up Mrs Allen, of Liversedge, despite failing to stop the bleeding, it was claimed.

Paul Worsley QC, prosecuting, said Syed, who denies manslaughter, should never have begun the operation to remove the cancerous kidney on January 28, 2000, at Dewsbury Dis-trict Hospital.

But he said that once Mrs Allen's abdomen was opened the surgeon should have abandoned the procedure after seeing the mass of cancerous tis-sue around the organ. Instead, Syed, of Acton, London, continued despite not being able to locate properly the main artery supplying blood to the kidney, Mr Worsley said.

"He could not see it (the artery) because of this terrible cancerous mass and cut it too close to the aorta and as a result Gladys Allen suffered a sudden and dramatic loss of half the circulating blood volume in her body.

"As she lost two litres of blood the blood pressure of Gladys Allen fell dramatically and, indeed, it meant that the anaesthetist had to undertake an intensive and rapid infusion of blood.

"There was no recorded blood pressure between 11am and 11.15am."

Mr Worsley added: "Any careful and competent surgeon should have realised this massive loss of blood. She should not have been closed up until this source of bleeding had been properly dealt with."

The prosecutor told the jury it will hear from a number of doctors and nurses who were present during the surgery. He said: "You will hear from one of the nurses that the atmosphere in which this operation continued is described as frantic."

But Mr Worsley said that in an account of the operation given to a senior manager at the hospital shortly after Mrs Allen's death, the surgeon said "that she had just faded away."

He added: "We submit that was not correct. She had bled to death."

Ending his opening speech Mr Worsley told the jury to put aside any sympathy they may have for Syed.

He said: "We can all make mistakes. In the heat of the moment a surgeon doing his best can make a wrong decision and someone dies.

"He is not being prosecuted for that."

Mr Worsley said Mrs Allen may not have lived for much longer anyway but "she did not need to die when she did".

Syed denies one count of man-slaughter.

The case continues