Scam dentist struck off

7:36am Thursday 27th March 2008

A CHEATING North Yorkshire Dentist who swindled up to £613,000 from the NHS, after he won £64,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, has been struck off.

David Heppleston was regarded as a respected member of his local community and had more than 5,000 patients on its books at his practice in Scarborough.

But over a nine-year period he cheated taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He created 800 fake patients, and was jailed for four years in 2006 after admitting 100 charges of fraud totalling £448,021.

The true cost of his deception however is thought to be £165,000 higher as plea bargaining reduced the number of fraudulent claims taken into account, the General Dental Council was told. In the middle of the scam, Heppleston, of Scarborough, appeared on the ITV quiz show and won another £64,000.

Heppleston, 46, was struck off yesterday during a misconduct hearing in London and is now banned from working as a dentist.

Ros Bedward, for the GDC, told the misconduct hearing that Heppleston should not be allowed to practise dentistry again.

"The fraud in this case was, in the words of the Court of Appeal, calculated, persistent and blatant, and gave rise to a substantial length of imprisonment," Ms Bedward said.

"There must be a risk of reoffending, from which members of the public should be protected."

Heppleston spent a year behind bars at Lindholme Prison, Doncaster, for his crimes. His jail sentence was cut on appeal to two-and-a-half years.

He sent a letter to the GDC apologising and asking for leniency and claiming many of his former patients had asked him when he would start practising again.

"I have been very stupid and irresponsible for doing what I have done," Heppleston said in his letter.

"But I was of previous good character and member of the community, and I was a good dentist."

Fraud investigators were alerted to the thefts by the abnormally-high number of tooth crowns Heppleston claimed to have fitted - four times the national average.

When police checked his computers they found the patients with asterisks next to their names did not exist.

Heppleston had also invented bogus treatments for real patients. Nearly all the claims were for below £360 because greater values would have been checked.