A rally team doctor performed an indecent act in his car while it was parked next to a mother and three young children, a hearing was told.

The woman told the General Medical Council's professional conduct committee how Dr Mervyn Wheeler stared at her and her ten-year-old daughter while performing the act at a motorway service station.

The doctor, who lost his job as the Banbury-based Subaru World Rally Team medic after the incident, has denied serious professional misconduct.

The committee will today decide if the allegations amount to misconduct, and whether Dr Wheeler should be struck off the medical register.

Sarah Plaschkes, for the GMC, told the committee that the woman and her three children visited Cherwell Valley Service Station, at junction 10 of the M40, in September 2000, to meet their stepfather. The woman said: "He adjusted his seat right back and adjusted his mirror, and was staring in the mirror obviously at me and my daughter.

"The worrying part was my daughter was there."

She sent her daughter to the service station to fetch security. Dr Wheeler was arrested by police, who found cannabis resin while searching him.

He was charged with indecent exposure, but the charge was dropped because the woman did not attend his trial in February 2001.

The South African doctor, formerly of Silverstone, Northamptonshire, who now lives in Barcelona, Spain, did not attend the GMC hearing.

Andrew Hockton, representing him, said: "Such is his sense of shame that he feels unable to appear before you."