Student DO struck off

A student dispensing optician has been struck off the student register for a 'head butting' incident which resulted in a broken nose for the victim.

Steven Mitchell had been formally cautioned for the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at Parkside Police Station in Cambridge on July 9, 2009.

Describing his actions as 'a reckless and impulsive act', the General Optical Council committee said Mitchell's fitness to undertake training as a dispensing optician was impaired.

Mitchell did not attend the hearing and the committee considered that if he had engaged with the fitness to practise process and had presented mitigation, it might have considered an alternative sanction to erasure.