A DISGRACED doctor who downloaded child pornography was suspended for another 12 months on Tuesday. Dr Adrian Catterall, 46, was back before the General Medical Council as restrictions which prevented him from treating children under 16 were described a

A DISGRACED doctor who downloaded child pornography was suspended for another 12 months on Tuesday.

Dr Adrian Catterall, 46, was back before the General Medical Council as restrictions which prevented him from treating children under 16 were described as "unworkable".

Dr Catterall, of Foxhill Road, Guilden Morden has already served a 12-month suspension which was imposed in 2003.

A year later he was reinstated and made the subject of 10 stringent conditions over the next 18 months.

That period is about to elapse now and the GMC ruled at his latest hearing on Tuesday that his fitness to practice is impaired.

Suspending his registration for a year, chairman Polly Clarke said the panel could not revisit previous decisions.

She said it had read testimonials from colleagues, including one professor who said he believed his risk of re-offending was extremely low.

"The panel concurs with the professor that the risk of re-offending is low. There is no evidence before it that you have re-offended in the seven years that have elapsed since you viewed the images.

"The panel accepts there are no appropriate and practical conditions that are capable of being put in place that would properly address all the areas of concern.

"Balancing all of these factors, the panel has determined that it would be sufficient and proportionate to direct the registrar to suspend your name from the register in the UK.

"Having taken into account what would be proportionate, your views in respect of the publicity involved in a review hearing, and that your name will remain on the Sex Offenders' Register until May 2008, the panel has determined that your registration will be suspended for a period of 12-months."

Dr Catterall was a gastro-enterologist who received a three-year community rehabilitation order at Cambridge Crown Court when he admitted 16 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child.

He had worked at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage, but was now employed in Nottinghamshire by the Sherwood Forest NHS Trust.

Dr David Sowden, the Dean of postgraduate studies at Kingsmill Hospital, said the previous conditions placed on Dr Catterall were "unworkable".

Dr Catterall claimed he had not broken any of the conditions placed on him and the case being made against him was "only on a difference of opinion".

He added: "My behaviour has been of a professional standard since the last hearing.