Lionel Guedj, 41, was jailed for eight years and his father, Carnot Guedj, 70, who worked part-time for him, was jailed for five years after a court heard terrifying accounts from patients who had made appointments for minor issues. such as a cavity or loose crown, and many healthy teeth ended up being removed without medical reason. The state prosecution team described how Lionel Guedj deliberately harmed healthy patients from the northern districts of Marseille in order to defraud the social security system. He sought to make maximum profits by forcing unsuspecting patients to undergo unnecessary procedures, showing “absolute disregard” for their health, and then collecting payments from social security. In one example, between 2006 and 2012, Guedj was accused of performing 3,900 root canals on 327 patients who had no medical need for the procedure, simply because he wanted to place bridges that would make him money. Dental procedures that normally took 45 minutes to an hour were performed by Guedj in about 10 minutes – many of which resulted in infections, complications or permanent damage. Such was Guedj’s “industrial” approach, squeezing the maximum number of procedures into the minimum time, that in 2010 he became the highest-paid dentist in France, with fees of up to €2.9m (£2.5m). He used it to buy real estate, paintings and luxury cars. There were gasps of horror during the six-week trial when poor and vulnerable residents of the southern city described how Guedj first sedated them before quickly pulling out healthy teeth or mutilating them before the patients knew what he was doing. When infections followed, he prescribed large amounts of antibiotics. One woman described going to him, aged 18, for a minor tooth enamel problem. He extracted 24 healthy teeth without properly disinfecting the roots. She said that since then: “I’m in pain 24/7… My life is on hold.” He said he avoided society and felt ashamed. “You want to crawl into a hole and never come out again, even to work.” Guedj often said he would give people a Hollywood smile. But a 50-year-old coach driver said the dentist had deposited so much he was left with “mouse teeth”. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. One woman said her constant bad breath after repeated infections meant she quit her job serving at a bakery and avoided opening her mouth around other people. Another man who suffered a series of tooth extractions said he could not afford to have his teeth repaired and his life had been severely affected. “I can’t eat properly… I don’t laugh like I used to.”
