GOC restores optometrist to register

Optometrist Jayant Dattani has been restored to the Opticians Register having been struck off in December 2008 on pleading guilty to a series of frauds in 2006.

In Dattani's application for restoration, the committee was told that the frauds involved forging claim forms to obtain fees supposedly for work performed for Boots as a locum over a seven-month period involving six stores. It said that the committee hearing the case in 2008 had little choice but to erase.

It was determined that Dattani had fully met all the requirements of his community service order and a favourable report from his probation officer was submitted. He had paid back all the money he stole, had sold his house and discharged the debt that was a major part of the background to his original offending.