Optometrist convicted of sexual assault banned

Aside from being roved from the register, Harj Sethi, 35, also received an eight-month suspended sentence and will be placed on the Sex Offender Register for 10 years.The first offence occurred when Sethi repeatedly touched the thigh, hip and lower back of a 17-year-old girl during a 15-minute inspection while she was alone in his consulting room with him.The second complainant, a young mother who had her small child with her, said the optometrist made contact with her breast during the eye examination and displaced her tracksuit bottoms to look down th.According to the chair of the GOC’s Fitness to Practice Committee, who struck Sethi from the register, his actions were serious sexual offences committed in the context of a consulting room.“It constituted a serious departure from proper professional standards, was an abuse of his position of trust and involved an offence of a sexual nature,” she 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 holds the profession.”