AN EMBRYOLOGIST at a Basingstoke fertility unit defrauded and assaulted women desperate to have babies because he had "horrendous" debts, a court heard.

Southampton Crown Court was told that embryologist Paul Fielding, 44, formerly of Station Road, Whitchurch, deliberately failed to thaw frozen embryos belonging to couples wanting children.

The result was that eight female patients at the private Hampshire Clinic on Basing Road, where he worked, were misled into thinking they were being implanted with their embryos. In fact, their embryos were still in storage, while Fielding pocketed their £50 fees each time, the jury was told.

Prosecutor Jeremy Gibbons QC said it was not a case of women receiving the wrong embryos and he could not explain all of Fielding's behaviour. But he went on: "He was not spending time in the lab. He was out spending money."

The court heard that on three occasions, Fielding's deliberate failure amounted to assault because three women suffered injuries during the procedure to implant supposedly thawed embryos. He alleged that even though Fielding had not performed the procedure, he was still guilty of assault.

Mr Gibbons said Fielding resorted to dishonesty over £50 fees because his financial position was "horrendous" despite earning £49,000-a-year.

Going through Fielding's bank accounts for the period of the alleged offences, he pointed out unauthorised overdrafts, bouncing cheques and evidence of finance company loans including one of £10,000.

Mr Gibbons told the jury of six men and six women that from 1994 Fielding worked on assisted conception as an embryologist at Basingstoke hospital and from 1996 at the Hampshire Clinic as well.

Mr Gibbons said eggs would be taken from a woman who had boosted her fertility with drugs and, after mixing with her partner's sperm, up to three fertilised eggs - embryos - would be put back. Others would be stored in super-cold liquid nitrogen in case they were needed later.

He told the court Fielding - who has a degree in pharmacology - worked in the laboratories where it was his job to mix the sperm and egg from the couple, to freeze and prepare embryos and maintain records.

By 1996, he was working with Mr Robert Bates, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who performed the procedures on the women. Mr Gibbons said Mr Bates could not have known whether there were embryos in the syringe he was using to implant.

The prosecutor alleged Fielding's deception only came to light in 2000 when there was a problem with treatment for one woman and the storage facilities at the Hampshire Clinic were audited.

It was then discovered, partly by using DNA, that embryos for eight women were still in storage when they should have been implanted "months or even years" earlier.

It was also now apparent, said Mr Gibbons, that when a locum embryologist filled in for him during a holiday, Fielding had created a separate record to cover his deception.

But Mr Gibbons said the clinic's lack of success in frozen embryo transfer was already worrying Mr Bates, who had written to Fielding saying he wanted to investigate it after 16 cases failed to produce results.

Fielding is charged with eight counts of false accounting and three of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The offences - all of which he denies - are alleged to have occurred between 1997 and 1999.

The trial continues.