AN OPTICIAN has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct after he made crude remarks about women's breasts to a female patient.

Mr James Richards was fined £500 after a disciplinary inquiry ruled he had made inappropriate comments to secretary Mrs Susan Curling, 51, during an eye test at his practice in Vicarage Road, Watford.

But he was cleared of an allegation that he ogled Mrs Curling's bust at the appointment in September last year.

Mrs Curling said she left the surgery feeling shocked and distressed after Mr Richards stared at her chest and spoke about big-breasted women.

She told the General Optical Council this week: "I just did not think opticians talked about things like that."

Everything had seemed normal as the optician showed her into his consulting room, she said. But she felt uneasy when he referred to a newspaper article about an officer who had been forced to leave the army because he touched a woman's breasts.

Mrs Curling said: "When he was talking about this lady he kept on looking at my breasts. I kept on looking down at my blouse to see if I had left a button undone."

Richards started talking about a former colleague who had been pestered by men because of her breast size. He then chatted about the chest size of one of his wife's friends.

Mrs Curling said she was stunned by the conversation.

She said: "He just pointed out that she had not lost it off her breasts and her breasts were very big. I think I was in shock. I am not one to make a fuss but I felt terrible inside."

When the 30-minute eye examination was over Mrs Curling hurriedly left the surgery. She said: "I felt terrible. I looked at glasses before I left but I knew I wasn't going to buy them from there."

Richards, an optometrist since 1964, had denied all the allegations, maintaining "the word breast did not come up in conversation the whole time" and asserting he had not stared at Mrs Curling's breasts.

He said: "I was looking down slightly but I was not conscious of staring at anything really."

He was cleared of staring at Mrs Curling's chest but found guilty of serious professional misconduct because of the remarks he had made.

Earlier Miss Katie Gollop, representing Richards, told the hearing the incident had come as an "enormous salutary lesson".

She said: "The shock and devastation is going to take some time to sink in by itself. He has accepted the remarks he made were inappropriate."

June 17, 2002 10:30