The 14th-century phrase of William of Wykeham, “Manners maketh man”, is the motto of Winchester College, and New College, Oxford.
It is not, though, on a plaque over the front door of dental surgeon Matthew Walton.
He has just been found guilty by the General Dental Council (GDC) of professional misconduct at his surgery in Shropshire after his staff reported him for habitually and prodigiously belching, breaking wind, using profanities and making obscene gestures.
The unusual charge sheet at the professional conduct committee stated that at the surgery Walton did his belching and wind-breaking in front of patients and staff “i. during appointments with patients; ii. in the ground floor reception area; iii. in the first floor waiting area.”
It alleged that he “made rude gestures by sticking up two fingers behind the backs of patients and to practice staff” and that he “regularly swore in front of staff and patients”.
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He made offensive remarks about unemployed people and derogatory comments about patients if they were disabled, elderly or from an ethnic minority.
In The Importance of Being Earnest, Jack observes that “It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist”. Clearly, though, being a dentist does not preclude vulgarity.
During the hearing the panel was told by a dental nurse that she had asked Walton to stop passing wind. She testified: “It was annoying. I didn’t like the smell around the practice and it made us feel sick.”
She said: “If I spoke to him about it, he laughed and did it more.”
Another dental nurse said that Walton had a particular penchant for belching while saying the word b****cks, and how he was particularly abusive to elderly and disabled patients.
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The GDC ruled that Walton evidently “found it funny” to be flatulent while his co-workers ate their lunch and that his conduct was unprofessional and inappropriate.
The punishment for Walton, whose manners are clearly in an advanced state of decay, will be delivered later this year.
This is not the first case of extraordinary behaviour from a practising dentist.
In 2008, Dr Alan Hutchinson, a dentist from Batley, West Yorkshire, was struck off for professional misconduct. Evidence that he regularly used sterilised dental instruments such as excavators and carvers to clean his dirty fingernails and probe his ears before using them on patients was rejected by the High Court as insufficiently proven.
The court did, though, accept that Hutchinson had violated hygiene in other ways – including one occasion when a dental nurse caught him urinating in the dental sink and then treating a patient moments later without washing his hands.
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At a dental surgery in Sampierdarena in northern Italy, Alvaro Perez was arrested in 2008 after his patients reported him for using unorthodox techniques and causing unendurable pain. He had been knocking out their old fillings with screwdrivers and pulling teeth with household pliers. His main apparatus, the police found, was an adapted DIY power drill. Mr Perez, it turned out, had no dental qualifications and was charged with deception.
Newton Johnson, a dentist in Llanelli, Wales, was convicted of defrauding the public purse of £37,555 for dental work he had not carried out. With his wife, the practice manager, he had invented 100 patients including Varlo Johnson. Varlo could not be interviewed by the police, however, because he is a Hungarian Wirehaired Vizsla, and, the pet of Mr Johnson’s sister.
At the trial, prosecuting counsel allowed the facts of the case to inspire some memorable oratorical flourishes. Mr Justin Gau, for the Crown, told the court: “The fillings they performed were the fillings of their own wallets”, and that: “They were saying to the public purse ‘open wide’ and performing a series of illegal extractions.”
The author is Professor of Law , and director of the Law School, at the Open University. His book Weird Cases is published by Wildy, Simmonds & Hill