A YOUNG social worker was left with a large red scar after a surgeon removed the wrong lumps in her neck, an inquiry heard.

The 27-year-old woman said she feared the worst because her father had an operation to remove a cancer in the same area.

But Julian Mason, 38, removed two glands and a lymph node lower down, the General Medical Council was told.

Patient Miss VL, who works for Blackburn with Darwen Council in the youth offending team, told the committee: "I am not happy because I see people looking at it and they question me about it. It is very upsetting that I had an operation and the original lump was not removed. I had an operation that was not necessary."

Mason has admitted his treatment of VL on November 12, 1999, was inappropriate and unsatisfactory but denies he was irresponsible.

The woman was one of 13 who suffered poor treatment at the hands of Dr Mason, while he was laser protection supervisor in the ENT Department of the Royal Bolton Hospital, the hearing was told.

She first discovered the lump at the age of 23 and decided to see her GP because of a family history of the same problem. Her father was diagnosed with cancer and left with the left side of his face paralysed from an operation. Her mother also had a benign lump removed. She said: "With my family history, I was concerned. Mr Mason felt the lump with his fingers and looked down my throat. There was a chest X-ray and he said if I was a young man he would definitely carry out the surgery but because I was a young woman we should hold and see what happened.

"We then discussed that I would have the lump removed. I did consider going private but my GP said Mr Mason might end up carrying out the operation either way."

She said the surgeon did not mark the lump on her neck and remembered waking up 'extremely sore' after the operation on November 11, 1999.

"I did not really want to see it straight away because of other people's reactions. I went to the bathroom and saw it in the mirror. It appeared to me to be double the size Mr Mason told me it would be. Four centimetres long, not two." She added: "It was very swollen along the crease of my neck. If I got upset it became red and if I had a drink of alcohol the scar stands out in colour.

"I was told three lumps had been removed instead of one. A month later I was having a meal and I just stroked my neck and the lump was still there."

Miss VL saw another doctor in January 2000 and was told the lump was still there, the committee heard.

"He said I would need a second operation. I had only just returned to work. " Mason is accused of failing to define the nature and position of the lump using fine needle aspiration tests or a CT scan.

The surgeon is now working in psychiatry at the Fairmile Hospital in Oxfordshire and has no intention of resuming work as a surgeon.

Dr Mason, of Essex Street, Newbury, Berks, denies serious professional misconduct. The hearing continues.