GOC suspends dispensing optician Derrick Tempest after convictions

A dispensing optician who failed to disclose two drink driving convictions to the General Optical Council has been handed a 12-month suspension.

The GOC received notification of Derrick Tempest’s conviction in March 2013 from the Metropolitan Police under the Notifiable Occupations Scheme. He was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for two years and disqualified from driving for four years. The police also informed the GOC of an earlier drink driving conviction in 2010.

Neither conviction was declared to the GOC as it should have been. In his evidence, Tempest said that he did not disclose the second conviction because he was no longer intending to practise and did therefore not seek retention believing that the police would inform the Council with subsequent erasure from the registers. The registrant admitted failing to declare the first conviction.