A senior consultant orthopaedic surgeon will go on trial in a year's time accused of fraud.

Mohammed Suhaib Sait, who worked in north Kent, was expected to begin a 12-day hearing at Maidstone Crown Court today.

But because of a backlog of cases, the trial couldn't be heard as priority is being given to defendants who are held on remand in prison.

Sait, who did not appear, will now go on trial at Maidstone's Nightingale court at the Great Danes Hotel on November 27 next year.

He is alleged to have defrauded medical insurers AXA PPP between Feb 2011 and April 2015, and Aviva, from February 2013 and May 2015, for treatments he claimed were more complicated than they were.

He faces two fraud and two forgery charges, and one count of making a malicious communication.

The prosecution is expected to allege that the defendant "routinely inflated" his fees for medical procedures, believed to be between £4,000 and £20,000.

It was suggested Sait claimed the procedures were more complicated than they were and misrepresented this to insurers.

It is further alleged he sent a handwritten letter to the patient of a colleague which conveyed information which was false.

Sait, 58, of Chislehurst Road, Chislehurst, used to work at Longfield’s private BMI Fawkham Manor, which closed its doors to patients in June 2019, and Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford.