BERLIN - A court in Germany has sentenced a man to four years and three months in prison for posing as a plastic surgeon and performing procedures on dozens of patients.

The regional court in Regensburg, about 100 kilometres north of Munich, found the defendant guilty Monday of grievous bodily harm and fraud.

German news agency dpa reports that the 31-year-old man, who wasn't named for privacy reasons, had injected Botox and silicone into the cheeks, lips or forehead of more than 50 men and women.

The patients complained of painful swelling and numbness after the procedures.

Prosecutors had asked the court to hand the man a five-year sentence, but judges considered the defendant's confession and mental illness as a mitigating circumstance.