An unqualified man who charged members of his community hundreds of pounds for medical treatment has been ordered to work for free.

Gurmukh Singh, aged 48 of St John's Road in Old Trafford was convicted of four counts of deception in December 2007. 

He has been sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for a year on Friday 25 January and was also ordered to do 60 hours unpaid work, and was made subject of a two-month curfew.

The Oldham Primary Care Trust first raised concerns about Singh in August 2005

A joint investigation was then launched between GMP and the Medicines Health and Regulatory Authority.

A number of families had reported taking their children to get treatment from a "Doctor Singh" for eczema.

He had been recommended to them by word of mouth, and charged for his consultation, leading people to believe he was qualified in a form of medicine called Ayurveda (a traditional Indian system of medicine, recognised by the World Health Organisation).

The PCT was told Singh would take calls from his 'patients' on his mobile, and loosely referred to himself as a doctor.

He then visited the families' homes where he checked the people affected by the dermatological disease, and gave them creams to treat it.

On some occasions the people affected saw their conditions improve.

On at least one occasion however, a man who paid £800 to Singh for treatment saw his eczema get much worse. In parts, his skin went black and peeled off.

Statements provided to officers investigating this man showed that four families had given him more than £2,000 for his services.

Singh was arrested at his Trafford home in May 2006. In a subsequent search police found a substantial amount of unmarked and unidentifiable products, as well as some certificates claiming Singh was a member of an Ayurveda medical body.

Some of the products found at Singh's house were sent for testing. They were found to contain antihistamines and prescription only steroids.

In interviews after his arrest Singh admitted to treating people at their request with products he imported from India. He said he kept only a small amount of the money he charged, and sent the rest back to India.

Singh was formally charged with four counts of deception in February 2007.

Detective Sergeant Lindsey Curry said: "This man abused one of the most sacred positions of responsibility in a community. He may well have had genuine intentions to help people, but he was unqualified to do so, and massively overcharged for his services. In some cases, the conditions of the people who went to see him actually got worse, and all of them ended up well out of pocket. As well as claiming disability benefit, Singh was earning hundreds of pounds out of his patients. The amount of medicine he had in his house suggests that he had no intention of stopping either."

A spokesperson for the Ayurvedic Practitioners Association (APA) said: "Such incidents illustrate the urgent need for statutory regulation of the traditional medicine sector in the UK. Fortunately, all professional Ayurvedic associations in this country have been actively engaged in the process of statutory regulation, which has Department of Health backing and is currently anticipated to commence in 2009. Until then, voluntary regulation bodies like the APA ensure that their members are adequately trained and also adhere to appropriate codes of professional practice."