Read more Weird Cases

In 1969, a legal report said a key feature of any profession is its restriction of admission to only those with the required training. Certainly, you’d expect that your dentist met that professional standard. But you’d be disappointed if you were a patient at the surgery of Alvaro Perez in Sampierdarena in northern Italy.

Perez, from Ecuador, was recently arrested after his patients complained that he’d been knocking out their old fillings with screwdrivers and pulling teeth with household pliers. His main apparatus was — skip this next bit if you’re of a sensitive disposition — a power drill. Perez was arrested after one patient suffered unendurable pain and summoned the police.

Perez, who has no dental qualifications, has now been charged with deception. There have been several comparable imposter offenders in Britain. In the world of medicine there have been 40 cases in the last 70 years. In 1992, for example, Mohammed Saeed, a layman, was found to have been fraudulently practicing as a family doctor in Bradford for 30 years. His partners had grown progressively suspicious of his absence of medical knowledge. He was given a five-year jail sentence.

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From the 1980s, Paul Bint, a former hairdresser, posed as a doctor in many hospitals for 12 years. He did all sorts of medical procedures including trying to assist in a heart by-pass operation. In 1994, Roy Grimshaw, another fake doctor, was jailed for fraud after gaining a job as a clinical services manager at Guy’s hospital in London. He had previously posed as a surgeon at a private clinic in Lancashire where he’d carried out nine surgical operations, many gynaecological procedures and three vasectomies. He was only exposed when Bolton magistrates’ court, where he was facing a driving ban, had his medical qualifications checked.

People have also been discovered faking it as lawyers. Say hello again to Paul Bint, the former hairdresser and would-be doctor. He has also been convicted of fraud for posing as a barrister, having stolen a wig and gown and worked on his eloquence. His smooth speech, though, wasn’t delivered in a court room but on a Virgin train in 2000. Proclaiming he was a distinguished advocate, he tricked the chief executive of Virgin, who happened to be travelling on the same train, into compensating him for expensive goods and tickets he claimed to have been stolen while on board.

But the prize for faking it goes to Dr Kenneth D. Yates, an associate professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire in America. In 1954, “Dr Yates” was revealed to be Marvin Hewitt, a high school dropout. When caught, he was in his fifth academic job in seven years, though he was not prosecuted because despite his fraud he was an admirable and respected physicist.

Professor Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University. His recent book How the Law Works is published by HarperCollins

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