A doctor seduced one of his patients and then prescribed her drugs, which he took himself, the GMC has ruled.

Married father-of-one Mardan Mahmod also borrowed £8,000 from the woman, who was going through a divorce, while treating her at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

A fitness to practise panel in central London yesterday found that the allegations against Mahmod had been proved.

The panel will convene again today to decide whether he is guilty of serious professional misconduct.

The patient, known only as Mrs A, had been attending the hospital's haematology department for a blood condition.

She began a relationship with Mahmod in 1999 after he asked during a consultation to rent a room at her Brighton home.

During the affair, Mahmod divided his time between the patient's flat, his accommodation at the hospital and his wife and daughter, who lived at the family home in Croydon, Surrey.

He also apparently found time to run a dry-cleaning business.

He was a "hypochondriac" who kept a wide range of drugs in the fridge and would prescribe Mrs A sleeping pills before taking most of them himself, the panel was told.

Mrs A said he also asked for £8,000 to buy cars during their nearly three-year affair, which she handed over because she feared he would leave her.

He has apparently since paid back £3,600.

Mrs A ended the relationship in November 2002 because she believed he was seeing another woman.

Mahmod has not been present or represented during the hearing.

However, he is said to have denied any wrongdoing in the past, insisting he was not aware that being in a relationship with a patient was inappropriate.

Mrs A told the panel yesterday that Mahmod had become her doctor in 1997 but they had not begun a relationship until two years later when he asked to rent a room from her.

She said: "I wrote to him at the hospital asking if he was still interested in renting the room.

"He left me two messages on the answerphone and he came out to see me the same evening.

"He didn't discuss the room at all, he just got me on the settee for sexual reasons."

Despite initially turning down the doctor's advances, Mrs A, who is in her late 50s, told the panel they later began seeing each other.

Mrs A said Mahmod was a "terrible bully" but she "fell in love with him".

She added: "He was a hypochondriac. He had so much medicine in his fridge. There were bottles of tablets with other patients' names on them.

"If he had an infection he would go to the fridge and take a tablet of something."