A 58-year-old Purley woman has been given a £22,000 settlement from her dentist after she says a root canal went wrong.

Dianne Winkworth has lost a tooth and her lawyers say she will lose another couple in the future while she faces corrective treatment in the future.

Miss Winkworth visited Dr Julius Babayemi of the London Road Dental Centre in Croydon between 2001 and 2007 and said she was 'never concerned'.

“Dr Babayemi always came across as nice and friendly," she said. "I saw him for regular check-ups for years and felt I could trust him.”

But in 2015 she began suffering severe pain and swelling in her teeth and went to her new dentist, before being referred to a hospital.

“The tooth was so excruciatingly painful it was clearly badly infected,” she said.

“I was surprised as it wasn’t that long since the filling had been fitted.”

At the hospital, she says it was confirmed that the tooth she had been referred to have extracted was so badly decayed it was un-restorable.

She said X-rays also revealed that a metal dental instrument was present in the root of another tooth that was now causing her pain.

“I was disgusted,” Miss Winkworth said.

“I’d had a piece of metal in the root of my tooth for years, but the dentist never told me.

“I just couldn’t believe it.”

The case was settled out of court in March 2017 and Dr Babayemi did not admit liability.

He said: “While I do not agree with the facts set out by The Dental Law Partnership (the law firm who took on Miss Winkworth’s case), I am limited in what I can say because of my professional duty to protect the confidentiality of my patient.”

“My aim is always to provide the best possible care and service to all my patients, and I am disappointed that on this particular occasion the treatment did not go as well as we had both hoped.”

Miss Winkworth said: "The whole situation has been really distressing."