A family doctor boasted about her dirty weekend with a new lover to embarrassed colleagues at her surgery, a professional conduct committee heard.

The General Medical Council hearing was told Dr Yvonne Hunniford also openly flirted, kissed and danced closely with the man at a Christmas party.

Her friends only later discovered he was a patient of the Cathedral Medical group in Chichester, the hearing was told.

Siri Knott, executive manager of the practice in Cawley Road described the couple as "two people in love" at the party on December 15, 2001.

She told the hearing: "She was sitting on his lap and they were kissing. Kissing on the mouth. Later on they were dancing together very closely.

"It was a little bit overt, I remember thinking it was not quite seemly to act in that way in front of all the members of the team and the guests."

Asked about their dancing, Mrs Knott said: "It was very intimate, they were not aware of other people on the dance floor.

"They were dancing very closely together, kissing."

She told the hearing in London she first stumbled upon the doctor and the patient, referred to only as Mr B, in a Portsmouth restaurant, when the man was introduced as a friend of Dr Hunniford's fiance.

In October 2001, Mrs Knott was introduced to Mr B in a pub as practice staff relaxed after a surgery open day.

She said Dr Hunniford, aged in her 40s, and her close friend Miss P, a former health visitor based at the surgery, had been chatting about the previous weekend.

Mrs Knott said: "They told us Dr Hunniford had been away for the weekend with her new boyfriend.

"It was sexually explicit, there was banter going on led by Miss P and supported by Dr Hunniford about a sexual occurrence that had taken place."

The doctor and Miss P then went to get Mr B and introduce him.

She said: "They sat down together, very closely. They were hugging. It was nice and I was pleased."

Mrs Knott said it was later she discovered that Mr B was a patient of the doctor's.

She said she could "barely look" at the man during a dinner when she discovered he was representing Miss P in disciplinary proceedings brought by the health authority.

Complaints about the health visitor's work were being investigated after her affair with another practice partner, Dr Jeremy Stupple, foundered.

Mrs Knot described the pair as "lovers" and said their relationship suffered difficulties in the summer of 2002.

The GMC hearing has been told an extraordinary tale of sex and intrigue at the practice involving illicit relationships, eavesdropping and bugging.

Dr Hunniford, of Willowbed Drive, Chichester, is accused of an improper sexual relationship with Mr B, abusing her position to support his application for council housing, and aiding and abetting the bugging of Dr Stupples consulting room at the surgery.

Dr Hunniford denies the claims.

Mrs Knott said she first thought of organising a "sweep" of the building for bugs after a conversation with practice nurse Elizabeth Brown. There were also reports of confidential information being presented at Miss Ps disciplinary hearing.

She said she had been chatting to the nurse in her office and added: "It was very strange. We spent the next 20 minutes sitting in the corner away from my desk, whispering.

"I was a little perturbed. When I was driving home I was thinking how odd everything had been."

She said she later lay awake thinking how reported information could be leaked.

Mrs Knott went to senior partner Dr David Hoare the following morning.

She said: "I said, 'I think we might be bugged' and he laughed."

But a security expert was brought in and the listening device was discovered behind a filing cabinet in Consulting Room Three - Dr Stupple's room.

The hearing continues.