Two psychiatrists have been found guilty of arranging irresponsible prescriptions after they handed out huge amounts of the heroin substitute methadone.

A month-long hearing was told two drug addicts died after visits to the surgery involved.

One man was found dead just three days after Dr Tom Onen, 52, prescribed him more than twice the lethal limit of the drug every day for a month.

A woman who died had been prescribed almost five times the fatal dose just two days earlier.

The General Medical Council heard addicts from across the South would visit the surgery to take advantage of the prescription policy.

One man, a roadie for rock legends The Eagles, was later arrested for supplying controlled drugs and jailed.

Another admitted he went to the clinic because he knew he could get what drugs he wanted and then sell some on to cover his travelling expenses.

Dr Onen, who has worked as a consultant adult NHS psychiatrist in the Crawley and Horsham area since 1993, and his colleague Dr Walter Onyango, 50, had faced a series of allegations relating to 31 patients at the Sunny Medical Centre, a private clinic for drug addicts in Deptford, London.

These included prescribing a cocktail of dangerous drugs in huge doses and failing to check the people concerned were even addicted in the first place, the GMC heard.

The two psychiatrists also handed out enough prescriptions to last for weeks and often issued garbled instructions on how to take them.

Shoddy records also showed that some patients had supposedly given urine samples even before being registered at the clinic.

In some cases, the committee heard drugs were supplied to patients although they had tested negative for them.

Andrew Collender, for the GMC, said: "This case related to the care given by Dr Onen and Dr Onyengo to drug addicts attending the centre. It relates to several criticisms.

"These include the failure to independently verify a patient's history and a failure to test the dose of the drugs prescribed against the patient.

"It is vital that these checks are done. We allege there was over-prescribing in this case, which can pose a risk to the addict of an overdose, or the risk of the addict disposing of an excess of the drug."

Dr Onen, of Orchards Way, Beckenham, Kent, set up the Sunny Medical Centre in 1995.

Dr Onyango, of Hollybush Lane, Welwyn Garden City, Herts, started working there in 1996 but quit last April.

The GMC found both psychiatrists guilty of irresponsible and inappropriate prescribing.

It was expected to consider if the case amounts to serious professional misconduct when the hearing continued today.