Optometrist James Paul Hands has been erased from General Optical Council registers after a fitness to practise committee heard that he had been sentenced to 14 weeks in prison for drink driving in August 2014.
Hands was given an 18-month conditional registration order in November 2010 after being charged with driving with excess alcohol. In August 2011, the Council brought the matter back to an FTP committee after intervention by his employer and he was suspended for six months. The suspension was extended at review hearings in February and October 2012 and was later replaced with a three-year conditional registration order in November 2012.
In September 2014, the Council was informed by the registrant’s employer that he had been dismissed from his position as a result of another drink driving conviction and that he was in prison serving a custodial sentence. The committee heard that Hands was three times over the prescribed limit.
The committee said there was a real risk of repeat offending and that Hands was in breach of the registration conditions imposed on him. It said that immediate erasure was the only sufficient sanction. Hands made it known that he intended to retire