UK: NHS doctor who faked degree for 20 years ordered to pay £400,000

A woman who worked as a National Health Service (NHS) psychiatrist for over 20 years using a fake medical qualification has been ordered to repay more than £400,000—or face extra time behind bars.

Zholia Alemi, 62, from Burnley, was employed across the UK after forging a medical degree certificate from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Despite never completing the required bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degree, she was registered as a doctor by the General Medical Council (GMC).

She denied 20 charges, including forgery, but was jailed for seven years in 2023 after being convicted by a jury at Manchester Crown Court.

A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesperson said she must now repay £406,624 in compensation to the NHS or face another two-and-a-half years in prison, stating that she had “cheated the public purse.”

Alemi forged both a degree certificate and a letter of verification in 1995. The court heard the word “verify” was even misspelt in the documents, yet they were accepted by the GMC.

The court was told Alemi had received more than £1.3 million in NHS wages despite never holding the proper medical qualifications.

Adrian Foster from the CPS said: “We have robustly pursued the proceeds of crime with NHS Counter Fraud Authority and have identified all the assets that she has available to pay her order.”

He continued: “Alemi had little regard for patient welfare. She used forged New Zealand medical qualifications to obtain employment as an NHS psychiatrist for 20 years. In doing so, she must have treated hundreds of patients when she was unqualified to do so, potentially putting those patients at risk.”

During sentencing, Judge Hilary Manley called for an inquiry into how the GMC accepted documents that were “clearly false.”

Alemi had previously lived in High Harrington, Cumbria, and was jailed for five years in 2018 for forging the will of an 84-year-old woman. That fraud would have seen her inherit the woman’s Keswick home and £300,000.

After her 2018 conviction, the GMC admitted its checks in the 1990s were “inadequate” and launched an urgent review of about 3,000 foreign doctors working in the UK.

(BBC)

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