Large fines handed down to tooth whiteners
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- Published: Wednesday, 30 March 2016 07:42
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A London tooth whitener has been fined £10,000 in a recent case. His actions were aggravated by claiming that he was a registered dentist when he was not. In a separate case a man who works for a company (Pearlys) that specialises in tooth whitening products in South Woodford, east London was fined over £4,300.
A prosecution against a man who set up an illegal tooth whitening business on Oxford Street and charged £69 a time for treatment pleaded guilty to two charges brought by the General Dental Council (GDC) and was fined over £10,000. The investigation was prompted by two complaints about Fadi Hatab at the clinic jointly owned with his brother on 51 Oxford Street, London. He carried out tooth whitening illegally on two people on 23 and 31 July 2015 without being on GDC's list of registered dental professionals.
At a case heard at Westminster Magistrates' Court, he was fined £5,000 for each charge, ordered to pay a £120 victim surcharge as well as GDC's costs of £1,192.53, making a total of £11,312.53. When passing sentence, the District Judge stated that "It is a serious aggravating feature that you were operating your business as if you were a dentist. By displaying a GDC registration number you were clearly holding yourself out in order to make people believe you were a dentist. At 14 appointments a day at £69 each you were making a considerable amount of money."
Commenting on the case, Francesca Keen, Head of Illegal Practice at the General Dental Council, said: "This sentence sends a clear message that if you carry out illegal tooth whitening, there will be consequences as tooth whitening must only be carried out by registered dental professionals. As an unregistered individual, Mr Hatab does not have the skill, knowledge nor, indeed, the training to perform tooth whitening. He clearly had very little thought for his patients' safety or the risk he was taking with their teeth when he took their money. By his refusal to comply with the law and masquerading as a dentist, he was placing the public at risk of harm which left us with little choice but to prosecute.”
In another case a prosecution brought by the General Dental Council (GDC) has seen a man who works for a company that specialises in tooth whitening products plead guilty to carrying out tooth whitening illegally at a salon in South Woodford, east London and fined over £4300. Several complaints were made against the salon, Pearlys, where Joseph Lazaroo worked as the national training manager. A GDC investigation on 7 October 2014 at the Pearlys salon in Chigwell Road, South Woodford found Mr Lazaroo was offering to carry out the treatment without being on GDC's list of registered dental professionals.
Mr Lazaroo had previously ignored warning letters sent by the GDC to the salon telling them to stop performing tooth whitening. At a case heard at Thames Magistrates' Court on 15 March 2016, he was fined £1,600, ordered to pay a £160 victim surcharge as well as costs to the GDC of £2,580.43. This is a total of £4,340.43.
During the course of the conversation with investigators, he said that the products he would be using contained sodium perborate - which is banned in the UK. After subsequent testing, the Pearlys tooth whitening products contained levels of hydrogen peroxide fifteen times higher than is permitted for direct sale to UK consumers (at 1.55%), as well as sodium perborate.
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