A woman from West Wickham has won £20,000 after dental implants left her with “12 months of wholly avoidable pain and suffering”.

Galina Jones, 53, saw implant treatment go “disastrously wrong” after she paid thousands for dental implants at a surgery in Putney, south-west London.

The mum, originally from Russia, visited Dr Chirag Patel in 2010 and had work done with the view to have crowns later fitted made from a “precious metal.”

However, complications quickly followed, with Mrs Jones unable to sleep, eat properly, and later seeing three of her implants fall out completely, which she described as a “particularly low point”.

She said: “I was in terrible pain, I could not sleep my mood was low and I became very anxious, and it was hard to eat normal foods.

“They felt really uncomfortable. I was pretty sure he had not used the quality of crowns I had paid for.

“I asked for a treatment document that outlined everything that had been done and the materials used, but Dr Patel refused.”

Mrs Jones sought help from another dentist, who told her the implants were “defective” and carried out procedures to fix the problems.

Mrs Jones was by this point £8,500 out of pocket and through the Dental Law Partnership (DLP) sued Dr Patel for negligence.

DLP solicitor Daniel Kinnear said: “The care provided by Dr Patel was far below the standards expected of him.

“His failures resulted in the requirement for Galina to undergo additional protracted dentistry and suffer 12 months of wholly avoidable pain and suffering.”

Galina said she was glad the case had been settled and she could start to move on, though she never saw Dr Patel’s details about her treatment.

Dr Patel did not admit liability.