Sixty-year-old Robert Webb of Hertfordshire has been caught performing illegal dentistry in unhygienic conditions, Stevenage Magistrates Court heard recently. The rogue dentist misled patients about his qualifications, claiming to be a clinical dental technician, when he has never held such a high position.
Mr Webb was caught out by an undercover investigator from the General Dental Council, posing as a client looking to enquire about dentures for her elderly mother. The conditions of the ‘clinic’ where he worked from were described as ‘cluttered, dusty and very dirty’ and bizarrely the unlicensed dentist kept pet hedgehogs in the premises. Jenny Stewart, the prosecutor at his trial, was quoted in the Daily Mail, “It is hard to gauge how many people he treated but he was clearly profiting from this and he would have come into contact with quite vulnerable elderly people.”
The courts found Mr Webb guilty of three offences relating to hisunlicensed practice and fined him over six thousand pounds. It emerged that the rogue dentist was previously struck off as a dental technician back in 2014 but continued to practice for a further two years before being found out. Mr Webb, who represented himself in court, said that it was his nature to be kind and helpful and that was how he ended up getting caught.