A HIGHLY-respected senior Birmingham dentist has admitted defrauding the NHS to feed his addiction to a heroin-type drug.

Shamed Iranian-born consultant and lecturer Behnam Aghabeigi, known as Ben, could now face being struck off or even jailed for the dishonesty.

The dad-of-three, of Hagley Road, Edgbaston, who is a clinical fellow with prestigious Harvard School of Dental Medicine in America, is being prosecuted after an investigation by an NHS fraud team and is also awaiting a professional conduct hearing by the General Dental Council (GDC).

Aghabeigi, a former oral surgeon and training director at Birmingham Dental Hospital and a dentist and educational director at Edgbaston’s Tatum Clinic and Institute, pleaded guilty to 12 charges of fraud at Birmingham magistrates’ court this month.

The court heard the respected figure abused his senior position to get his hands on buprenorphine between November 2009 and August last year. He has since lost his job with the Birmingham Dental Hospital.

Aghabeigi admitted getting prescriptions under the names of various friends and relatives to obtain the drug.

Buprenorphine is available on prescription despite being a strong opioid painkiller, often used as a replacement to heroin due to its similarities.

During the case, which has been adjourned for sentencing until next month, the court was told the financial loss to the NHS was “relatively small”.

William Edis, representing Aghabeigi, said the dentist was a man of good character with long-standing health problems, adding: “He is a high quality dentist brought low by his illness. This is a tragic story”.

He told the court Aghabeigi was prescribed the drug by a doctor, but later decided to “self prescribe” and became dependent on it.

Aghabeigi was suspended in September last year by the GDC ahead of a future hearing, but this was reduced to conditions on his working practices in March this year.

The dentist is now allowed to work and is practising at the Tatum Clinic under conditions including that he informs the GDC of any job he takes, limits his dental practice according to advice from colleagues and tells all organisations, locum agencies and people he works for that he is subject to conditions.

But he lost his job at Birmingham Dental Hospital after an investigation into the fraud.

Aghabeigi graduated from the National University of Iran with first class honours in 1984.

After a year in general dental practice, he was accepted to the Eastman Dental Institute where he completed two Master of Science degrees and went on to become a clinical fellow in America at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and the University of Chicago Medical Centre from 1992 to1994.

The dentist returned to the UK in 1994, trained as an academic oral surgeon and became a lecturer.

In 2003, he became a consultant and senior lecturer in oral surgery at Birmingham Dental Hospital.

A spokeswoman for the Tatum Clinic and Institute in Highfield Road, Edgbaston, said: “Dr Aghabeigi is working here as normal. We are aware of the hearings.”

A spokeswoman for Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Birmingham Dental Hospital, said: “Behnam Aghabeigi was employed as a consultant in oral surgery at Birmingham Dental Hospital. He is no longer employed by this Trust.

“Due to an ongoing investigation relating to this, the Trust cannot comment on the individual details of the case.”