Man `drank to excess'

Liver tests on a company executive showed "wildly excessive" drinking during a week-long business convention in Monte Carlo, the Queen's former physician, Sir Anthony Dawson, told the High Court yesterday.

Sir Anthony was giving evidence for the company physician Dr Georges Kaye, in his defence to a damages claim by TV sales executive Peter Baker, for alleged breach of his duty of care to make a proper medical assessment of him when he applied for the pounds 45,000-a-year post as head of international sales with NBC Europe in 1991.

Mr Baker, 53, of Great Bookham, Surrey, was headhunted for the NBC post and resigned from his existing job, only to be turned down at the last minute on the basis of Dr Kaye's assessment that he was a "spree drinker" whose thought processes could be blunted by excessive alcohol.