A SURGEON has denied the manslaughter of a patient who he treated at a private hospital in Harrow.

David Sellu, 66, a consultant general colon-rectal surgeon, is accused of the unlawful killing of 66-year-old Joseph Hughes at Churchill Clementine Hospital in Sudbury Hill, Harrow, run by BMI Healthcare, in February 2010.

It is understood Mr Hughes had flown from Northern Ireland for a routine knee replacement operation on February 5, 2010, and died there several days later of sepsis, an illness in which the body has a severe response to bacteria or other germs.

Sellu, of Hillingdon, appeared at the Old Bailey on Monday, January 21 and denied manslaughter and further denied a charge of perjury that he ‘wilfully made a false statement in judicial proceedings [as a] witness or interpreter’.

The wording of the perjury charge says that on or before August 18, 2010, during the inquest in Mr Hughes’ death held at North London Coroner’s Court in Barnet the consultant surgeon ‘wilfully made a statement material in that proceeding which you knew to be false or did not believe to be true, namely that you viewed the results of a CT scan of the said James Joseph Hughes at around 2pm on February 13 2010’.

Sellu was remanded into custody until the trial, which will begin in September or October on a date to be determined.