Optician who sexually assaulted two patients to pay £10k compensation

An optician who sexually assaulted two women who came to him as patients has been ordered to pay them £10,000.

Ian Jordan targeted one woman at a house in Glasgow’s Jordanhill years after assaulting another at his then practice in Ayr.

The 64-year-old had denied the crimes during a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court but was found guilty of charges of sexual and indecent assaults last September.

At his sentencing on Friday Sheriff Lindsay Wood put Jordan under supervision for 24 months and tagged him for six months keeping him indoors between 9.30pm and 6am.

Jordan, now of County Durham, was also ordered to pay each victim £5000 in compensation and was placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

The sheriff told him: “The offences you know are bad enough and caused considerable stress to both women.

“Matters are made worse in that they were committed on your patients when presenting as an optician and you breached the trust of the women.

“It was quite shocking what you did and it seems to me that you are still in denial and have not expressed any remorse in your background report.”

In 2018, the optician was struck off having controversially claimed to be able to help people with autism and brain injuries using tinted lenses.

He had seen thousands of patients from across the UK and abroad.

But, the General Optical Council slammed Jordan for a “disregard for the scope of his practice and the potential risks” to others.

The two sex attack victims meantime bravely testified against Jordan.

A 42-year-old woman recalled how Jordan had unexpectedly visited following an earlier conversation about her neurological disorder.

She told prosecutor Mark Allan how he walked in as she was trying to get dressed before putting his hand under her t-shirt and groping her.

The victim told how Jordan then asked her to lie on the living room floor.

She added: “He said he could sync his body with mine by laying on top of me. It would help with my neurological symptoms.

“He then stood me up told me to balance on one leg for him to check my balance, trying to spin me around and make me dizzy while wearing these lenses.”

The woman later spoke to a relative about what happened before police were alerted.

In August 2010, Jordan subjected a woman to what she called a “bizarre” incident at his shop in Ayr.

The 37-year-old said Jordan had not been her usual optician.

She recalled him touching her, asking inappropriate questions and quizzing her on a body piercing.

The woman added: “He said: ‘If a man saw you walking down the street, he would think you were nice. If he saw this, he would change his mind’.”

Jordan was said to have probed her on her schooling and being bullied.

After she began crying, he started getting “excited, clapping his hands, jumping up and down on the chair”.

The woman was left “confused” and it was years later before she went to police.

Kelly Dooley, defending, told the sentencing: “This is still a very serious charge.

“He has no previous convictions and there has been no offending since between the offences or since he was convicted.”