Optometrist handed three month suspension

Norfolk optometrist Alexander Pennington has been suspended from the General Optical Council (GOC) register for three months.

The GOC committee found Pennington’s fitness to practice impaired after he failed to inform the GOC of two criminal convictions when renewing his registration in 2014 and 2015.

He was convicted and fined in October 2013 following a violent altercation and then again in February 2014 for burning materials on his property.

Pennington was found by the committee to have breached the GOC code of conduct which requires registrants to be ‘honest and trustworthy’.

Speaking at the hearing, Pennington acknowledged that he knew the convictions should have been disclosed but was fearful of the consequences of disclosure.