A TOP neurosurgeon has been cleared of blame after an operation went tragically wrong and left a man almost paralysed.

Electrician Alexander Glancy, 60, woke up from the anaesthetic to find he couldn't move his legs.

The Court of Session in Edinburgh heard that consultant Robin Johnston was in tears at his patient's bedside – although the doctor denied that.

Mr Glancy, of Paisley, raised a civil action against the Southern General Hospital NHS Trust, telling the court that he had quit his job with Kvaerner Shipbuilding in 1991 and had not been able to work since.

To cure the pains in his arm and neck, he was admitted to hospital in July 1994 for an operation.

Before Mr Glancy told his story to judge Lord Boyd of Duncansby, lawyers for the two sides agreed that if he succeeded in showing the hospital had been at fault he would be entitled to more than £900,000 damages.

The hospital trust contested his claim that Mr Johnston had been negligent and, in a written ruling issued yesterday the judge said Mr Glancy had failed to prove his case.

"It remains, unfortunately, the case that the cause of Mr Glancy's catastrophic injury in the operation remains unexplained," said Lord Boyd.

The court heard that Mr Glancy was left with "incomplete tetraplegia".