Yesterday, a medical trial heard that a doctor inadvertently cut off a patient's right testicle.

Dr. Sulieman Al Hourani, 36, had to take out a cyst from the organ in a routine surgery.

Astonished nurses told the Fitness to Practise panel that on recognizing his fault, he held the gonad in his hand looking "surprised".

Ms. Sarah Pritchard, Counsel for the GMC, for the General Medical Council, said, "The staff's impression was that he had done it by accident".

In spite of the mistake, Al Hourani was permitted to carry on practicing at Fairfield Hospital in Bury, Lancs, as a surgical locum and registrar.

Earlier, he had been probed for injecting himself with a patient's painkiller drug.

But the Jordanian surgeon was released only after being indicted for pinching two boxes of sedative, dihydrocodeine.

Al Hourani is charged of bad behavior over the operation blunder, and drugs accusations.

The jury heard that he has now gone back home to practice medicine at the University of Jordan. The hearing will continue.

When the episode took place in September 2007, Dr. Al Hourani was practicing as a locum doctor at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, Greater Manchester. He is now working in Jordan and is being tried in his absence.

Ms. Prichard said that the testicle was purged as one nurse assisting the surgeon turned her back to get a stitch.