A DOCTOR jailed for killing a businessman and seriously injuring his wife in a car crash has been told he will not be struck off the medical register.

Dr Mark Meller will be allowed to continue to practise, despite currently serving a two-year sentence after he was found guilty of causing the death of motorcyclist Simon Rutley-Frayne, 39, by dangerous driving. His wife Caroline had to have her right leg amputated as a result of the crash.

The General Medical Council stressed that the offence was so serious that it was "bound to diminish public confidence in the profession".

The ruling read: "The panel wishes to make it clear that in anything other than exceptional circumstances, the appropriate sanction in such a case is, at the very least, a lengthy period of suspension in order to send a clear signal to the profession and the public that such conduct cannot be tolerated."

But members concluded that Meller, 36, was a "truly exceptional" clinician, and said patients and students should be not be deprived of his services for longer than necessary.

The fitness to practise hearing took into account the doctor's "genuine remorse", and ruled: "...your contribution to the care and welfare of patients, to the ethos of your hospital, and to the development of students and colleagues has been, and will be, not merely positive, but truly exceptional.

"The evidence as to your character and professional standing both before and after these tragic events is overwhelming. In these particular circumstances, the panel considers that it would be neither proportionate nor in the overall public interest to impose a sanction which would deprive patients of your services.

"Accordingly it has determined that this case should be concluded with no further action."

The ruling said the decision, made in February, had been "extremely difficult" and said: "The panel must take into account the expectation that a doctor who has been convicted of a serious crime should be subject to clear censure by his professional body. However, against that important consideration, the panel must weigh another aspect of the public interest, namely the value to society of returning an outstanding doctor to clinical practice."

Meller, of Beaufort Road, Exeter, was jailed in September at Exeter Crown Court. The consultant at North Devon District Hospital was banned from driving for seven years after he pleaded guilty to crashing into the Triumph Tiger motorcycle ridden by Simon Rutley-Frayne, with his wife Caroline riding pillion. He was overtaking another vehicle and was on the wrong side of the road on the A396, between Exeter and Stoke Cannon, when he hit the couple on November 10 2008.

Witnesses had described his driving as "impatient".

Mr Rutley-Frayne was thrown off into the road and his wife towards the grass verge as the bike glanced off the front side wing of the car. In a statement, Caroline Rutley-Frayne, of Tiverton, Mid Devon, told the court: "This man took my husband and my children's daddy and now we have to live the rest of our lives without him.

"Regardless of sentence, we are sure that this man will never forget the tragedy he has inflicted upon us."