Middlesex optometrist Harj Sethi has been erased from the General Optical Council register after he was convicted in 2016 of two cases of sexual assault in the consulting room.
The panel heard transcripts of the judge’s summing up from Sethi’s trial at Reading Crown Court in August last year.
The first complainant was aged 17 at the time of the assault in 2014. Seth was said to have touched her thigh, hip and lower back repeatedly during a 15-minute eye examination. The second woman, a young mother, attended with her child. During the consultation, Sethi touched her breast without permission and pulled back and looked down the woman’s jogging bottoms.
Sethi was given concurrent four month sentences for each offence, suspended for 18 months. He was also placed on the Sex Offender’s register for ten years.
In making the decision, the committee, chaired by Eileen Carr, said: Any lesser sanction than erasure would not meet the needs of public protection and would serve to undermine the trust and confidence in which the public hold the profession.’