A doctor charged with killing a British patient with a lethal injection of adrenalin almost a decade ago has been arrested in America, where she was working as a licensed anaesthetist.

Priya Ramnath, 39, allegedly killed Patricia Leighton, 51, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, during treatment for an infected bunion at Staffordshire General Hospital in 1998. Several days after the operation, Dr Ramnath left Britain and moved to the US with her husband and two children.

It was not until 2002 that the Crown Prosecution Service began extradition proceedings. Lawyers then missed the five-year extradition deadline by three days. Dr Ramnath was arrested on November 30 as she walked out of an operating theatre at Woodland Hills Hospital in Lufkin, Texas.

Mrs Leighton’s daughter, Debbie Leighton-Fellow, 38, said that her father, Brian, had never recovered from his wife’s death. “I know he’ll never marry again. He’s kept her things just as they were — her clothes in the wardrobe, her china dolls in their room.

“Trying to bring [Dr Ramnath] back to England to face the courts is the one thing that’s kept us going.”

The family believes that Dr Ramnath’s arrest follows the recent ratification of measures that enable the extradition of British citizens from the US even if the usual deadline has expired.

A remand hearing in Texas on Tuesday last week was told that Dr Ramnath had no knowledge of the charge pending against her.

Dr Ramnath had injected the adrenalin against her colleagues’ advice after Mrs Leighton’s blood pressure fell, the inquest at Cannock Coroners’ Court in 2004 was told. Andrew Haig, the coroner, had ruled that Mrs Leighton had been killed unlawfully.

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