An optometrist based in Southall has been banned from practising in the UK after sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl and a young mother in his consulting room.

Registered optometrist Harj Sethi, 35, was accused of sexual offences against two women when he was alone with them in 2014.

When conducting an eye examination for a 17-year-old girl, Sethi touched her thigh, hip and lower back repeatedly during a 15-minute inspection on September 23.

The second complainant, a young mother who had her small child with her on November 13, attended due to a believed deterioration in her eyesight.

According to the General Optical Council, Sethi touched her during the eye examination, making contact with her breast and displacing her tracksuit bottoms to look down them.

The optometrist, of Featherstone Road, Southall, was convicted of two counts of sexual assault on a female on August 3, 2016, at Reading Crown Court.

On September 2, he received an eight-month suspended sentence, was put on the Sex Offender Register for 10 years and was made subject to an 18-month supervision requirement.

Sethi was found guilty in Reading Crown Court in 2016

Last Tuesday (October 31), the General Optical Council (GOC) - the UK regulator for optometrists and dispensing opticians - decided to erase Sethi from its register.

The Fitness to Practise Committee found his fitness to practice impaired by virtue of two convictions for sexual assault and he is now unable to practise in the UK.

'Abuse of his position of trust'

After making the decision, chair of the committee Eileen Carr said on Monday (November 6): “These 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 added: “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.”

Sethi, whose employer remains anonymous for legal reasons, joined the Register of Optometrists on July 9 2010.

He has until November 28 to appeal his erasure, during which time he is suspended from the register under an immediate suspension order.

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