A RETIRED Hampshire doctor has been charged with a string of indecent assaults against his women patients.

Dr Robin Marsh, who worked as a GP in Hedge End for nearly four decades, will appear in court following a long-running investigation by detectives from Bitterne CID.

It is understood the 68-year-old faces four counts of indecent assault following allegations made by female patients.

Marsh, of Church Lane, Curdridge, is due to appear before Southampton magistrates on Friday afternoon. Now retired from full-time practice, he is alleged to have committed the assaults while working in the Southampton, Bitterne and Hedge End areas.

All offences are alleged to have occured during 2000 and before.

But a spokeswoman for the General Medical Council today said Marsh had not been suspended from continuing locum work as a result of the allegations.

"This is a police investigation and I am unable to comment on individual cases," she said.

Marsh retired from Hedge End's Lower Northam Road medical centre in June 1999, where he had been a partner for 37 years.

The GP helped turned the practice into a thriving surgery as the local population boomed from only 1,000 residents when he joined in 1962.

A respected family doctor known throughout the Southampton area, he also became chairman of Hamble Valley Rotary Club in August 1981.

The Daily Echo tried to speak to Dr Marsh about the allegations.

We visited his large Edwardian house in Curdridge

A woman answered the door and told our reporter "no comment."