Patients are not being told about the disgraced physicians, surgeons and GPs, who are still working in surgeries and hospitals across the country
Medical chiefs claim they cannot ban all sex offenders from working because it might breach their human rights.
But patients are not being told about the disgraced physicians, surgeons and GPs, who are still working in surgeries and hospitals across the country.
Those doctors, who have not been struck off the medical register and who have been found guilty of possessing child sex images are even thought to still be treating children.
The figures, obtained by the Daily Mirror through a Freedom of Information request, show that a total of 927 doctors have kept their jobs despite having a criminal record.
Some of them have committed more than one offence.
None of the patients treated have been informed.
Campaign groups yesterday asked the General Medical Council, who released the figures, to tell patients if their doctors have a criminal past.
Roger Goss of Patient Concern told the Mirror: 'Patients should be made aware if their doctor is found guilty of serious criminal offences that could affect their care and be allowed to make up their own minds if they want to risk being treated by them.'
'The problem is that the GMC is funded by doctors while their prime duty is to protect patients but these two things often come into conflict.'
Among the long list of offences include grievous bodily harm, cruelty or neglect of children, drug trafficking and domestic violence.
Five doctors have convictions for actual bodily harm, eight for kerb crawling, three for possessing indecent images of children and two found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
Nine have convictions for attacking their partners, one who made threats to kill, five for harassment and two for possessing offensive weapons.
The GMC insisted it enquired about an automatic ban on doctors who are on the sex offenders' register but 'advice was obtained from a leading QC who concluded that an automatic bar, without exceptions, would not be compatible with human rights legislation'.
Among those practicing with a criminal record is Benjamin Obukofe, who was found guilty by a court last year of sexually assaulting two colleagues at Spire Hospital in Leicestershire, including a girl of 17.
Although the married father was given a suspended prison sentence and put on the sex offenders register for seven years, he has not been struck off and will be free to work within a year.
Nicholas Spicer escaped being struck off in 2010 even though he was described by the General Medical Council as a 'deviant' for downloading child-sex stories.
He read the paedophile fantasies on his home computer between 2003 and 2007 while working with children as a GP but was cleared of misconduct and allowed to go back to work in another part of the country following a six-month ban.
A gynaecologist in the Wirral kept his licence after being cautioned for soliciting a prostitute.
While many will be free to practise only under warning and are subject to monitoring, some are licensed to treat patients, including children, without any sanctions at all.
One anaesthetist was allowed to carry on working after a three-month suspension for squeezing the breast of a junior member of staff.
Father-of-two Sudhakar Srirama, who practised at Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham, near Hull, said the incident was a 'one-off'.
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