A FORMER senior doctor hailed as a hero for saving lives after the UK's worst-ever rail crash has been cleared of five counts of child rape after a week-long trial.

Dr Paul Grout MBE was alleged to have ‘repeatedly’ raped a girl when she was aged between 11-12 years old in South Cumbria.

Preston Crown Court heard the complainant first reported the alleged incidents to a schoolteacher.

Prosecutor Alastair MacDonald KC said during the trial: “In short, she was, at the age of 11-12 years old, a young child unequipped with the emotional maturity and life experience to deal with these issues." 

However, a jury took just 90 minutes to acquit Dr Grout of the charges on Monday.

When giving evidence on Thursday, Dr Grout defiantly refuted the allegations.

He said: “The thought of having sex with a child is absolutely abhorrent to me. It is not something I would do.

“The thought of having sex with a child is repugnant to me.”

Earlier in his career, the 66-year-old was hailed as a hero after he helped to prevent more deaths following the Selby rail disaster, which killed 10 people and injured 82 others in February 2001.

It is still the most tragic rail crashes in the country.

Dr Grout, then a senior consultant at Hull Royal Infirmary, was the first medic to enter the wreckage and was credited with preventing more deaths.

He was later awarded an MBE in 2008 after he set up a specialist medical training centre for military search and rescue teams in Wales, Preston Crown Court heard.

He went on to work as a consultant in emergency medicine in A&E, as well as being deputy medical director for the trust that runs Furness and Westmorland general hospitals.

But he was suspended in 2021 with The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) also imposing restrictions on his practice pending the outcome of an investigation.