AN OPTICIAN who performed a sex act while giving an eye test to a teenage girl has been struck off.

Selby man John David Gill was jailed last January for 21 months after being found guilty of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and outraging public decency at his practice in Knottingley.

The second charge related to an incident when Gill was seen performing a sex act while sitting in the window of the shop.

Gill, who was 36 when jailed and used to live in Hunters Way, Selby, was struck off by the General Optical Council following a hearing last Wednesday. Bradley Albuery, for the council, said: “This is one of the most serious cases that can come before a regulator of a profession.

“It is difficult, is it not, to imagine a more serious departure from the proper professional standards that should apply.

“Here was a 14-year-old, unaccompanied girl, excited about getting lenses to replace her heavy glasses, and she had to go through the trauma of what occurred in that place and thereafter the ordeal of having to give evidence in relation to it.”

Gill, who is on the Sex Offenders’ Register, was not present and the last contact he had with the GOC was in 2009 prior to his trial when he told them he had sold his interest in the opticians’ practice.

In striking Gill off, the General Optical Council committee said they felt his crimes had undermined the standards expected of opticians and damaged public confidence in the profession.

They also said they had a duty to protect the public.