Barnsley Hospital has been ordered to pay a six-figure sum in damages to a doctor whose career was blighted after he was wrongly accused of fraud.
Locum consultant anaethetist Dr Michael Fish, 45, had been accused of falsifying his time sheets to claim for hours he had not worked in 2009.
Two Barnsley hospital doctors wrote to the General Medical Council informing them Dr Fish had committed fraud.
But in libel proceedings at the High Court on Tuesday, the hospital's then clinical director in anaesthesia, Dr Ye Myint and Barnsley Hospital Trust accepted Dr Fish did not make any fraudulent claims.
Dr Fish, who is based in Kelso but works across the north of England, said: "What they have done is morally repugnant and callous.
"I've been completely vindicated but the professional and personal hurt and humiliation they have caused me is inexplicable.
"I'm a professional person. I have integrity and I'm a very honest person and for them to say those things without any justification is unbelievable."
Dr Fish had worked at Barnsley Hospital from July to October 2009, and was then asked to extend his contract.
More in today's Chronicle.
