Suspended sentence for health worker in eye case
AN OPTOMETRIST who failed to spot symptoms of a life-threatening brain condition during a routine eye test of an eight-year-old boy who later died has been sentenced to a two-year suspended prison term.
Honey Rose, 35, failed to notice that Vincent Barker had swollen optic discs when she examined him at a branch of Boots in Ipswich.
The abnormality is a symptom of hydrocephalus – fluid on the brain – and Vincent died in July 2012, about five months after the eye test.
Rose had not looked at retinal photos taken by a colleague and failed to examine the backs of his eyes with an ophthalmoscope, Ipswich Crown Court heard.
She had carried out thousands of examinations over years and was “generally competent”.
Judge Jeremy Stuart-Smith, sentencing, said although it was a “single lapse”, the breach of duty was so serious that it was criminal. The case is thought to be the first conviction of an optometrist for gross negligence manslaughter.
Gross negligence manslaughter cases generally involve multiple lapses over a period of time and involve obvious symptoms that would lead to a health practitioner referring someone for immediate treatment.
Judge Stuart-Smith told Rose: “You simply departed from your normal practice in a way that was completely untypical for you, a one-off, for no good reason.”
Rose had tried to “cover up” her actions when she found out Vincent had died, claiming he had not co-operated and showed signs of photophobia.
Judge Stuart-Smith dismissed this account as false and praised the Barker family for showing “dignity and restraint”, noting they had called for leniency in sentencing.
Ian Stern QC, mitigating, said Rose had worked “extremely hard” to qualify in India before moving to the UK and qualifying as an optometrist here.
Rose, of High Street North, East Ham, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after an earlier trial at Ipswich Crown Court. She was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and given a 24-month supervision order.