AN optician caught with hundreds of pornographic images of children on his home computer has been struck off.
Eric Robert Godfrey, 59, at first told police he had been trying to receive adult porn from the internet, but officers discovered a letter which revealed his true intentions.
In it, Godfrey told the website provider: “I’ve seen more naked boys at the swimming pool than I see in your site. Come on, give us some porn.”
Godfrey, who practised at the premises of Eric R Godfrey Ltd in Hale Lane, Edgware, was convicted at Harrow Crown Court on July 28 of eight charges of making indecent photographs of children.
But the court was told that 534 indecent images of boys and girls were found on his computer. Most were of naked or semi-naked children, but some included adults.
Godfrey was made subject to a three-year community rehabilitation order, told to pay £600 costs, and put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
On Friday, he was struck off in his absence by the General Optical Council’s disciplinary committee.
Bradley Albuery, for the council, told the committee that Godfrey had downloaded the images from four websites to which he had subscribed in 1999.
Although Godfrey did not attend the hearing, he submitted written mitigation explaining that he was a man of previous good character who had an unblemished reputation, apart from this one mistake, which he deeply regretted.
He said he had looked at the website out of “naive curiosity” and argued that there had been no suggestion that he had made any attempt to distribute the images.
Committee chairman Heather Wilcox said: “We do not feel it right that a person on the sex offenders’ register should be treating patients, including young children.”
