BARCLAYS appealed yesterday against a ruling that it is legally responsible for alleged sexual assaults by a doctor paid to carry out medicals on new hires.

Gordon Bates performed medical assessments on Barclays employees and job applicants in north-east England for nearly 20 years, and is said to have sexually assaulted 126 people, mostly young women, some of whom were just 16 years old.

The former GP, who died aged 73 in 2009, is alleged to have carried out unnecessarily intimate examinations on the claimants in a consulting room in his home in Newcastle.