Dentist struck off

Dirk van Moerbeke saddled patients in Sidley with thousands of pounds worth of repair bills after giving them badly fitting dentures and crowns.

He also made false claims on the NHS for treatment.

But when patients tried to complain, the Belgian doctor either ignored them or was 'rude and brusque'.

Fifteen former patients complained to the General Medical Council after treatment at either the Silk Dental Practice, Sidley, or the Apple Surgery in Eastbourne.

The General Dental Council found van Moerbeke guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Chairman Gill Madden said: "The committee has found that you acted dishonestly and without due care for the interests of your patients.

"This was a consistent set of dishonest actions against the NHS, the tax-paying public and patients over a period of several years.

"Additionally, the evidence demonstrated clear failings in your clinical practice and in your attitude towards your patients.

"In several instances you had blatant disregard for obtaining appropriate consent from patients, thus undermining the basis of trust that should exist between dental practitioner and patient.

"Although you admitted many of the charges against you and expressed remorse for your actions, your own evidence was unconvincing and displayed a lack of insight into your own failings and into appropriate standards of treatment.

"Accordingly, the committee has determined that the only appropriate sanction in this case is erasure."

The panel had heard from a retired school teacher who said she cannot smile and finds it difficult to eat after van Moerbeke fitted her with dentures that kept falling out.

Another woman told the hearing how six veneers fitted by van Moerbeke in May 2003 'looked awful and made me look like a horse'.

Van Moerbeke's case was originally halted in February this year when he got up, walked out of the room and caught a train back to his home in Eastbourne.

His lawyer Dennis Matthews QC had initially thought his client was in the bathroom.

But the following day Mr Matthews produced a faxed copy of a medical certificate stating that van Moerbeke had been taken ill.

Van Moerbeke, who registered as a dentist in Brussels in 1977, was formally suspended from his position at the Silk Dental Practice, in Ninfield Road, by the Bexhill and Rother Primary Care Trust in March 2004.