Past offences must be disclosed, warns GOC

Registrants are being warned of the dangers of not declaring details of convictions, cautions or any disciplinary proceedings, after a dispensing optician was suspended for repeatedly failing to declare convictions for theft and assault.

The warning follows a fitness to practise hearing last week, at which the panel ruled that David Malcolm Thomson had dishonestly withheld details of two criminal convictions.

Thompson was fined £100 on February 14 1984, at Halesowen Magistrates Court, for theft and fined £350 at West Bromwich Magistrates Court, on November 16 2004 for assault.

However, he failed to declare these convictions when applying for GOC registration on July 27, 2005, and on subsequent applications for retention on the register on March 12 2006, February, 10 2007, and February 28 2008.