A receiver for an optical communications system which corrects distortion of a received signal. A clock recovery system utilising a feedback and feedforward system are provided. The feedback loop comprises a phase detector and a clock source, while the feedforward loop comprises the phase detector and a delay element for delaying the output of distortion correction system. The feedback loop has a significantly lower bandwidth than the feedforward path. There are also provided methods of optimising tap weights and of acquiring initial tap weights.