Dispensing optician erased from GOC registers after fraud

Kent-based dispensing optician Suzy Stonehouse has been erased from General Optical Council registers.

A GOC Fitness to Practise Committee found her fitness to practise impaired by virtue of misconduct following a conviction for four counts of fraud.

In making its decision, the committee said: ‘Erasure was appropriate as the offence was serious and likely to undermine public confidence in the profession and anything less was incompatible with the message to be sent to the public and the profession.

‘The committee did not believe that there was a risk of recurrence but the profession demands the highest standards and that those standards would be upheld by the Committee with an appropriate and proportionate sanction.’