WOMEN alleged to be victims of fraud and assault by a Basingstoke embryologist could have been implanted with the wrong embryos, a court heard.

Defence counsel Miss Susan Edwards QC put the point to an expert during the Southampton Crown Court trial of Paul Fielding, 44, formerly of Station Road, Whitchurch.

Fielding is alleged to have left embryos in frozen storage when eight women attending the Hampshire Clinic, in Basing-stoke, wanted them implanted in their wombs to give them a chance of having a child.

The prosecution alleges Fielding pocketed a £50 fee on each occasion and allowed the women to undergo the transfer procedure needlessly.

Dr Karen Turner, one of the country's top embryologists, was brought in by Hampshire Police to assist their investigation in 2000.

On Monday, Miss Edwards put to her: "There is a possibility, as a working hypothesis, that Mr Fielding transferred, in some cases, the embryos of another patient."

Dr Turner agreed it was a "possibility", but added: "I could not really find evidence either for or against that. That would be very difficult to prove."

Miss Edwards put another possibility to Dr Turner - that the women's own embryos were implanted back into them "because Mr Fielding may have frozen more embryos than he recorded".

Dr Turner said that this would make Fielding's records "substantially inaccurate". She said they were "lamentably below the standard you would expect".

Police interviews with Fielding from the time of his arrest in 2000 were read out to the court.

In them, Fielding complained about pressure of work and admitted his relationship with his boss, the gynaecologist Mr Robert Bates, had deteriorated despite them having known one another since the 1980s.

Fielding - who said he helped organise Mr Bates' stag night - told how he was invited by Mr Bates to apply for the job in Basingstoke and described how the pair set up the fertility services at Basingstoke hospital and then at the private Hampshire Clinic.

Fielding (pictured) told officers he became depressed, in part because he said he was doing twice the work of embryologists at other private hospitals, and he revealed he was hit hard by his wife's miscarriage in 1999.

He admitted that he was "incredibly down and frustrated" when Mr Bates wrote him a letter saying he had lost confidence in him.

The jury heard that results from frozen embryo transfer had been poor, with only one success since 1996, and Mr Bates had been annoyed that it took Fielding 10 months to find an independent expert to advise them how they could improve.

Fielding told officers that unexplained embryo-storage tubes found in the storage vessel could have been there because he was practising his freezing technique.

Fielding faces eight counts of false accounting and three of assault occasioning actual bodily harm relating to the period 1997 to 1999.

The prosecution has said Fielding faces assault charges because three of the women suffered some pain and discomfort during embryo transfer procedures to which they only consented in the belief they might become pregnant.

Fielding denies all the charges.

The case continues