A EUROPE-wide hunt in under way to find a doctor who groped his cleaner.

The National Crime Agency and the police have issued a European arrest warrant for Dr Abdelrahman Sabeel Mohamed who fled from his lodgings in Blackburn.

The paediatrician who worked at Burnley General Hospital stroked the female cleaner’s face and massaged her breast, over her uniform, a medical tribunal has heard.

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But Mohamed, 52, who was later charged with sexual assault by Lancashire Police and convicted by a Preston Crown Court jury, never made contact with the authorities again after being questioned over the Blackburn attack.

He is now wanted not only on a crown court bench warrant but a European arrest warrant, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) fitness to practice hearing was told.

The authorities hunting the doctor do not know of his whereabouts and there is speculation he may have even returned to his native Sudan.

Paul Williams, representing the General Medical Council, told the MPTS hearing that the cleaner had given a full account of the attack at Mohamed’s crown court trial.

Mr Williams said the cleaner, referred to only as Miss A for legal reasons, stated: “He started stroking my face with his hand and started touching my breast, over my uniform, and I just froze. He just giggled.”

The tribunal heard that she demanded to know what he was doing before she ran off across a landing, with the doctor allegedly saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’.

Mohamed, said to be an agency employee at the time, was living in accommodation provided by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust in Infirmary Road, Blackburn, when the sex assault took place.

He was charged with sexual assault, after two police interviews, in August 2011.

But after being given police bail, he never attended an initial hearing before Blackburn magistrates.

The cleaner added: “It was not expected, it was not encouraged. I was just there to do my job.”

One of her colleagues saw her just moments after the attack and told Mohammed’s trial that the alleged victim was clearly distressed.

The tribunal was told that Mohamed’s eventual crown court trial was conducted in his absence in January 2013 and he also failed to attend a subsequent sentencing hearing the following October.

Mohamed’s fitness to practice medicine hearing is again being heard in his absence in Manchester. He is said to be impaired by reason of misconduct and his court conviction.

Mr Williams said:”There are many sources of information within the papers which go to prove these allegations.

“Even just off these few references, in my respectful submission, the charges are clearly made out to the required standard.”

A three-strong panel, led by lay chairman David Wyle, began deliberations over his alleged impairment yesterday afternoon and the hearing is expected to resume today (Tues).

Mohamed is thought to have been previously employed as a doctor in the Republic of Ireland, having first qualified at the University of Gezira, in Sudan, in 1989.