One recruiter and the five agency nurses he employed in a scam have been sentenced after they defrauded the NHS of £73,000 Milton Keynes based recruiter, Charles Elad, 46, hired a number of temporary agency nurses while working at ID Medical, including George Kiberu, Violet Nhende, Abosede Amusan, Ernest Anonyo and Rilindis Bessem, who he enlisted in the fraud. The group targeted three NHS trusts in the scam – Scunthorp General Hospital, Royal Blackburn Hospital and Darlington hospital – by submitting falsified timesheets and invoices for work they had not done.
A significant number of those invoices were paid, the conspirators then sharing the proceeds between them. The fraud was discovered when an NHS worker questioned an unsolicited invoice and raised the matter with NHS Counter Fraud Authority to investigate. It had been submitted by an agency called CE Recruitment, the company director of which was Elad’s wife, Tanyi Esekanh Elad.
Hundreds of dodgy timesheets were discovered, in some cases the nurse who had signed the timesheets off did not even exist. Charles Elad was paid a share of the proceeds and his wife had allowed her bank account to be used to facilitate the payments.
Nicola Wheeler, from the CPS, said: “Nurses are in a position of trust when working in our hospitals but in this case, each abused that trust fraudulently to claim money which was ultimately extracted from the NHS.
“Charles Elad was the driving force behind this fraud but these nurses played an important part in providing their names and details to complete the timesheets and split the proceeds with him. “The CPS presented evidence that showed each defendant was aware that the timesheets they were submitting were false and were in regular contact with Charles Elad to send his share.”
Jailed Charles Elad denied five counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and one count of fraud. He was convicted of four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of fraud. The remaining conspiracy count was left to lie on file. He has been jailed for three years.
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