Students seek to overturn bans

High Court appeals have been made by two students after they were erased from the General Optical Council registers.

Ahead of its quarterly meeting last week, the GOC announced that student optometrist Talha Hassan (News 32.03.12) and student dispensing optician Andrew Davies (News 01.02.13) had each lodged separate appeals.

A judgment had been handed down for Hassan after his appeal on May 16 at the High Court in London, where the judge ordered his case be remitted back to the GOC fitness to practise (FTP) committee for consideration of sanction only.

The GOC last year found Hassan guilty of misconduct by virtue of his police caution for fraud and for being dishonest, it said, and for failing to declare this to the GOC on two separate occasions. Justice Leggatt allowed his appeal on the grounds that the FTP committee was ‘misdirected as to the applicable law by the legal adviser’, and had ‘based its decision on findings of fact in relation to Hassan’s role in the alleged offence that were mistaken and which there was no evidence for’.