A FORMER psychiatrist has been jailed for seven years for sexually assaulting three women, including one woman from Ryedale.

Michael Haslam, 69, of Crayke, was imprisoned for seven years on Tuesday by a judge at Leeds Crown Court for raping a former patient at Clifton Hospital in 1988.

The raped woman, who is now in her 40s and lives in Ryedale, had told the court how she fled through Clifton Hospital to her car after the attack, pursued by the doctor and fearing for her life.

She said she later drove to Strensall Common, and cut her wrist.

She said the indecent assault against her had happened while she was being given carbon dioxide therapy by Haslam at Bootham Park Hospital. She said she had fallen unconscious and then woken to find him spreadeagled on her.

Mr Haslam was also handed a three-year sentence for indecently assaulting the woman at Bootham Park Hospital earlier in the same year. The retired consultant was given two 18-month sentences for two indecent assaults on a second woman at Clifton Hospital in 1981.

He was jailed for a further 18 months for indecently assaulting a third woman at York District Hospital in the same year.

All these sentences are to run concurrently with the seven-year sentence for the rape. The court was told that Haslam faces financial ruin in relation to the costs of a libel action, which he had taken out against the Sunday Times over suggestions that he was being investigated over a rape allegation.

Haslam was told by Mr Justice Gray that the offences happened while Haslam was treating his patients, in his position as consultant psychiatrist.

"By contesting this case, you have subjected them to the traumatic ordeal of giving evidence in public as to what happened," he said. He said he took account of Haslam's age, saying he would be 70 in February, and that the offences took place a long time ago.

In mitigation, Tom Bayliss QC said: "Dr Haslam has had a long and distinguished career, during which he has assisted many patients. "It's a great tragedy that at the end of his career he finds himself in this situation." Letters of support had been received by the court, written spontaneously by former patients.

Haslam was convicted of all the offences last Friday at the end of a five-week trial, when he was warned that a custodial sentence was inevitable.

Updated: 11:46 Wednesday, December 17, 2003