A shamed GP has been struck off after claiming to be a war hero while running a bootlegging racket.

Dr Alan Pollock, from Larkfield, was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence last year after admitting using fake boarding cards to buy duty-free cigarettes in airports.

The 49-year-old, who worked at Abbey Court Medical Centre in Tunbridge Wells, was erased from the medical register by the General Medical Council yesterday following a two-day hearing.

The tribunal heard Pollock had falsely displayed the letters QGM (Queen's Gallantry Medal) after his name.

He said he had been honoured for saving a small child but it later turned out he had no such award.

The hearing was also told Pollock made travel arrangements and provided fake documents for Jayne White, a former Gatwick Airport employee from Maidstone, and her daughter Lucy, 20, to try and trick departure lounge workers when buying the goods."

White and her daughter, both of Westminster Square, off Queen's Road, were arrested after they were stopped by Border Force officials at Gatwick in April 2013.

"With a good salary and considerable wealth, you had to go grubbing around making dirty money" - Judge Anthony Scott-Gall

Officers found they were carrying 3,000 duty-free cigarettes, which can only be purchased if travelling outside the European Union — the pair claimed they were going to Oslo, presenting fraudulent boarding passes.

Officers found a stash of the counterfeit passes at their home.

Further investigations showed the operation was being run by Dr Pollock from his home.

Pollock, Jayne White and her daughter, who were all sentenced in March after admitting the offences, sold the cigarettes on the black market.

Sentencing the doctor at Lewes Crown Court, Judge Anthony Scott-Gall said: "It baffles me that as a respected GP you became involved in this squalid criminality.

"With a good salary and considerable wealth, you had to go grubbing around making dirty money buying duty free cigarettes and flogging them off. What a terrible fall from grace.”

Mrs White, a former employee of Gatwick Airport, was sentenced to a two-year jail term, suspended for two years.

Her daughter was ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work.

Dr Pollock will have to cease practising medicine with immediate effect.