A surgeon who told a woman with breast cancer there was nothing wrong with her was not qualified to read x-rays and later destroyed her records to cover his tracks, a General Medical Council hearing was told yesterday.

Consultant surgeon John Philip twice gave the nursery worker the all clear, even though he had found a "shelf" in her right breast. She has since died of the disease.

The woman, identified as Mrs A, went back for a further check after getting pain in her breast. Doctors found three tumours in her right breast and one under her arm. She was treated with chemotherapy and later had a mastectomy, but died in 1998 aged 39.

In a statement written before she died, Mrs A, a mother of two, said of a session with Mr Philip in 1996: "He said he noticed a shelf at the top of my breast. He said it was the same as it had been [in 1994] and there was nothing to worry about.

"He didn't say anything about it during my appointment in 1994, or in the subsequent letter. He led me to believe that I did not have any problem."

Mr Philip was working in a private breast screening clinic in Sheffield when Mrs A went to see him. He was also clinical director of the Pennine Breast Screening Service, part of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, in 1998-2003.

The former chief executive of the trust, David Jackson, said that Mr Philip did not have the appropriate training to read mammograms and his job was mostly an "administrative role".

Sarah Campbell, for the GMC, said that when Mrs A's family began preparing a civil case for damages, they were told the films and the prints had been destroyed.

The hearing continues.