DO suspended for downloads

Dispensing optician Peter Colbear has been suspended by the GOC's Fitness to Practise Committee after an allegation that he had either downloaded or had access to child pornography at his workplace.

Essex Police have yet to decide whether they will charge Colbear with any offence relating to the downloading of child pornography although the GOC panel was satisfied that there was sufficient evidential basis for the application of an interim order.

The Committee, which asserted that the hearing was 'not a fact-finding exercise', claimed that it proceeded on the basis that 'the serious allegations called into play the protection of members of the public, as well as the wider interest in maintaining the high standards of personal behaviour and reputation of the profession'.