Patients are not being told about disgraced medics who have been allowed to keep their jobs despite serious criminal convictions.
At present, there are more than 1,000 doctors who are registered and licensed who have criminal convictions, MailOnline can reveal.
This includes possession of indecent pictures of children, sexual assault, soliciting for the purpose of prostitution, cruelty and neglect of children, threats to kill and death by careless driving.
But in some cases even those who have committed the most serious crimes are able to stay in their posts.
The shocking revelations will come as a shock to the millions of patients who put their complete trust and faith in doctors.
Dr Steven Burn, 53, a consultant cardiologist, was able to keep his job despite being found with 65 child abuse images on his work computer
Campaigners have reacted furiously to the disclosure and said patients should not be kept in the dark.
Magda Taylor, of patients’ group The Informed Parent, told MailOnline: ‘The fact [the number of doctors with criminal convictions] has increased is appalling.
‘I do think the public have every right to know about doctors and their previous convictions.’
Official figures reveal there are 1,067 doctors with criminal convictions, who have accumulated 1,181 crimes between them.
The number of doctors with convictions has risen by 38 over the past two years, while the number of crimes has gone up by 35.
But in the past year, only 13 doctors were struck off the medical register.
Under the law, doctors who receive a caution or conviction must attend the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), the disciplinary arm which hears all cases pursued by the General Medical Council.
However, in many cases, the watchdog allows them to continue to practise or only bans them temporarily.
The GMC had claimed two years ago it was looking for a way automatically to ban doctors guilty of serious crimes, including sex offences, without a hearing.
Dr Rupert Pemsel, 32, a trainee anaesthetist, kept his job despite paying call girl Leanne Davies for sex while on duty at a maternity hospital
However Steven Burn, 53, a consultant cardiologist, was able to keep his job despite being found with 65 child abuse images on his work computer.
Dr Burn, a heart doctor, was arrested after IT staff at the Royal Derby Hospital found indecent images on his work PC while checking to see if it had been infected by a computer virus.
He was convicted by a court of possessing indecent images.
Some of these pictures featured children alleged to be as young as seven, while Burn had also downloaded Japanese ‘Hentai’ animated pornographic images and made Google searches under the headings ‘bestiality’, ‘little Asian girls’, little Japanese girls’ and ‘beautiful little boys’.
But he managed to avoid being struck off after a disciplinary panel at the MPTS ruled Burn should be allowed to return to medicine following a 12-month suspension.
The panel opted to give him the chance to resume his 28-year-old career after he insisted he would ‘rather die than reoffend’.
Dr Rupert Pemsel, whose wife is a GP, (pictured together) had blamed his behaviour on an addiction to internet pornography and stress from helping sick children in Uganda
Figures obtained by MailOnline reveal three doctors have convictions for possessing or taking indecent photographs of children, while three licensed doctors have committed sexual assault.
There are 107 doctors with convictions for violence, including grievous bodily harm, cruelty to and neglect of children and possession of dangerous weapons.
