Christel Rogers
Introduction
Christel Rogers is an occupational therapist who was struck off the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) register in May 2025 after a reviewing panel found her fitness to practise remained impaired by a drink-driving conviction and by her misconduct in reporting the charge late. Rogers had been convicted on 30 January 2023 at Birmingham and Solihull Magistrates’ Court of driving on 17 June 2022 with alcohol in her breath above the prescribed limit, contrary to section 5(1)(a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. A substantive panel imposed a six-month suspension after she admitted the factual particulars; a year later, with the suspension about to lapse and no engagement from her, the reviewing panel decided extending it had no merit and struck her off.
Background Information
Rogers worked as a registered occupational therapist in the United Kingdom. Her offending took place on 17 June 2022, when she drove a motor vehicle on a road after consuming so much alcohol that the proportion of it in her breath exceeded the prescribed limit. She was convicted at Birmingham and Solihull Magistrates’ Court on 30 January 2023. The HCPC’s allegation was twofold: the conviction itself, and that she did not inform the regulator she had been charged in a timely manner — a failure the substantive panel found amounted to misconduct. Her participation in the substantive hearing, conducted virtually, was very limited: after an initial appearance she consented to the hearing proceeding in her absence, and the panel found the facts proved by her admissions.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Struck off after a drink-driving conviction, a late report to the regulator, and a year of silence. The substantive panel suspended her for six months; the review panel found no insight, no remediation and no reason to extend the suspension.
The substantive panel found the conviction proved and the late notification misconduct, and suspended her for six months on both conviction and misconduct grounds. At the review hearing on 27 May 2025 — the day before the suspension order expired — the panel noted that Rogers had emailed on 6 and 7 May 2025 to say she would not attend, would not be represented and would submit no documents, thereby waiving her right to attend. The panel found impairment remained on personal and public grounds: she had made no substantive engagement with the review, provided no information about her current circumstances, and offered no evidence of insight or remediation, leaving a risk of repetition. Concluding that any further extension of the suspension had no merit, it directed the registrar to strike her name from the register, reasoning that removal was the only sanction that would both protect the public and address the public interest.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The striking-off is recorded on the official HCPTS hearings site and on MedicWatch’s independent record of HCPC determinations, with Rogers listed among struck-off practitioners on MedicWatch’s erasures list. The case illustrates the regulatory consequence stack that follows a drink-driving conviction for a registered professional: the criminal sentence in the magistrates’ court is only the first layer, and the failure to tell the regulator promptly — then the silence through a suspension and a review — is what converted a six-month suspension into erasure.
Current Status
Rogers was struck off the HCPC register by the decision dated 27 May 2025 and can no longer work as a registered occupational therapist in the United Kingdom. The proved facts are the conviction itself — a matter of criminal record — and the misconduct finding for the delayed notification; the panel’s strike-off decision rests on her non-engagement and the absence of any evidence addressing the findings. No public statement from her and no appeal outcome appears in the fetched record.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Rogers’s occupational therapy registration — and with it her UK career in the profession — ended not with the conviction alone but with everything that followed it: the late report, the minimal participation, the year of silence while the clock ran down on her suspension. The conviction of 30 January 2023 remains a matter of public court record, and the determination remains permanently searchable on the HCPTS site and on independent records such as MedicWatch, the first results any future registration or credentialing check would surface.