Dr Magdy Omar was banned from practising by the GMC following the conviction, and suspended from practising pending any appeal.

The Hendon GP was jailed for six months in May 1996 after being found guilty of indecently assaulting a patient during an internal examination at his Hampstead surgery in June the previous year.

At Dr Omar's trial the jury heard the till then highly-respected doctor had told the woman to squat to "stretch her tense back", then touched her while saying: "What a good little cat you are."

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on four other charges.

The Court of Appeal later rejected the doctor's claim that an admission of guilt was unsafe because it had been made during a period of confusion caused by the depressive illness he had been suffering at the time.

Last July, the GMC's Professional Conduct Committee concluded his "grave" offence "undermines the trust which the public places in the integrity of members of the medical profession".

He was ordered to be struck off and was immediately suspended from practising pending any appeal.

Dr Omar on Wednesday told two High Court judges in London that he was fighting for his honour and against being labelled a "sexual menace."

Representing himself, he said the suggestion that his suspension was justified because he posed a continuing threat to the public was "grossly unfair and unjust".

Dr Omar told Lord Justice Otton, sitting at the High Court with Mr Justice Turner, that he was due to appeal against his striking off to the Privy Council.

But now he was seeking judicial review of the legality and fairness of his immediate suspension.

Manifestly wrong

Dr Omar said: "The committee did not have any evidence that I would constitute a risk to the public, in the context of the charges against me, and would effectively be a potential sexual menace to the public.

"It was a manifestly wrong conclusion contrary to the findings of an NHS tribunal.

"There was expert psychiatric evidence available to the committee which suggested exactly the opposite and that I was suffering from a depressive illness at the time."

Rosalind Foster, appearing for the GMC, argued the suspension was necessary "to uphold confidence in the medical profession as a whole".

The doctor's conviction had put a question mark over his "morality and integrity" as a whole.

The committee was saying that, pending the disposal of any appeal against Dr Omar's striking off, it was necessary to ensure the proper protection of patients.