A pathologist has admitted that he changed a previous report which led to a surgeon being accused of the manslaughter of a Liversedge pensioner.

Dr Kenneth Shorrock left out a passage in a second report into the death of a woman on the operating table which absolved urologist Hurais Ramis Syed of blame.

Mr Syed was later charged with her manslaughter but was cleared at Leeds Crown Court.

At a hearing of the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Panel in Manchester yesterday, Dr Shorrock, who last month conducted the post-mortem examination of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes who was shot dead by police on a London tube train, admitted altering the report.

But he denied he had "no sufficient reason" to do so and denied a charge of serious professional misconduct.

Jeremy Roussak, for the GMC, told the panel Mr Syed carried out an operation on 78-year-old Gladys Allen to remove a cancerous kidney in 2000. Mrs Allen died after the operation at Dewsbury and District Hospital, having lost a lot of blood and suffering a cardiac arrest.

Dr Shorrock, then a consultant pathologist at the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax but now a Home Office pathologist, carried out a post-mortem examination following the death.

In his report in January, 2000, he said that Mrs Allen was given "necessary surgery" by Mr Syed.

He added: "In my opinion there is no definite evidence of any avoidable deficiency in the medical or surgical treatment that she received."

But in a December 2000, Dr Shorrock produced a second report, which was "essentially identical in content" to the first, the hearing was told.

Mr Roussak said: "However, in the paragraph headed conclusions, Dr Shorrock said Mrs Allen 'underwent surgery for a large tumour involving the left kidney'. You will notice that the word 'necessary' disappeared.

"Dr Shorrock's conclusions then stop. The sentence which had found its way to the end of the previous report 'In my opinion there is no definite evidence of any avoidable deficiency in the medical or surgical treatment that she received' has vanished. It is not there."

Mr Roussak added: "You will also note that there is no reference in this report to any other report that might have been produced."

A police investigation into Mrs Allen's death was then launched and Dr Shorrock gave a number of statements to officers. Mr Roussak said Dr Shorrock was guilty of serious professional misconduct.

The hearing continues.