Surgeon sent home in 'jungle bunny' race row

A surgeon has been suspended over claims that he said a white colleague who returned from holiday with a suntan looked like a "jungle bunny".

John Riddington Young, 58, was sent home on full pay pending a disciplinary investigation into the alleged "racist" incident.



Considered by fellow doctors to be something of an eccentric, he has published a treatise on medicine in English poetry, and uses slides of old masters while teaching students.

His interests are listed on a medical website as: "Ferret breeder, woodcarver, arable farmer and Punch and Judy man who grows prize-winning sweet peas". The surgeon achieved notoriety in 1997 when he was a witness in a trial in which a husband was found guilty of assaulting his wife by shouting so hard it injured her hearing.