Christopher De Bono
Introduction
Christopher Keith De Bono is a UK dentist who was suspended from the register for twelve months on 9 April 2026, after a GDC Professional Conduct Committee found he had been convicted of speeding at 162mph and of driving while disqualified and without insurance, and had then deliberately failed to tell his regulator — a failure it found was dishonest and intended to conceal his offending. All charges were found proved; his fitness to practise was found impaired by both misconduct and convictions .
Background Information
The convictions themselves were admitted: on 8 September 2023 De Bono was convicted of speeding at 162mph, and on 6 November 2023 of driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance, having pleaded guilty to all three driving offences. He was not new to the system — he had received an interim conditions warning in 2009 for dangerous driving, which the committee treated as proof he knew his duty to self-report convictions to the GDC .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and adjudicated (regulatory). The driving offences are criminal convictions on guilty pleas. The dishonesty finding was made by a GDC committee in a fitness-to-practise process on the civil standard of proof.
The case before the committee was less the driving than the silence that followed. De Bono informed the GDC of neither the September 2023 conviction nor the November 2023 convictions. The committee found those failures were deliberate and dishonest — intended to conceal further convictions from his regulator and avoid regulatory scrutiny — and found all five charges proved .
The aggravating factors it listed were extensive: risk of harm to the public from speeding and from driving while disqualified; premeditated misconduct and attempts to cover up wrongdoing; blatant disregard for the role of the GDC and the systems regulating the profession; disregard for the court’s disqualification sentence; and the 2009 warning for an earlier driving offence. It suspended him for twelve months with a review before expiry .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The concrete consequence is the twelve-month suspension, layered on top of the criminal sentences already imposed for the driving offences. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of dental professionals suspended in 2026 .
In mitigation the committee recorded De Bono’s apology — explicitly not extending to the dishonesty, which he denies — difficult personal and professional circumstances and concern for the welfare of loved ones at the time, evidence of good conduct since, a professionalism course taken in 2024, and positive character references. The dishonesty denial is the loose end: the committee’s finding stands, but the subject has not accepted it .
Current Status
De Bono is a suspended dentist under a twelve-month order imposed on 9 April 2026, with a review directed before it expires. The convictions and the concealment finding both remain on the record; the review will assess what has changed since, with the professionalism course and character evidence already weighed and found insufficient to avoid suspension .
Impact on Their Career/Life
A second driving-related regulatory mark, sixteen years after the first, converted what might have been a notification case into a dishonesty case: the committee’s finding was that he used the gap between convictions to keep his regulator blind. For a dentist, a twelve-month suspension for convictions plus concealment — with the concealment still denied — is the kind of record that outlasts the sanction, because every future employer and every future panel reads the same two facts: 162mph, and the regulator never told .