The Manchester crown court has convicted Zholia Alemi for fraud, after she practised as psychiatrist in the UK for 20 years without necessary qualifications and after forging medical degree certificate.Alemi received income and benefits of over £1m across her career,
Manley J referred to a “deliberate and wicked deception”, noting that Alemi worked in hospitals across England, Wales and Scotland. Alemi was found guilty of 13 counts of fraud, three counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a false instrument.
Manley J commented that the deception Alemi to work with “potentially very vulnerable people over a long period of time”, questioning how Alemi had been able to practise for so long and in so many positions. The Prosecution described Alemi as “a most accomplished forger and fraudster” who had “no qualification that would allow her to be called, or in any way to be properly regarded as, a doctor.”
Reports indicate that in providing a forged certificate to the General Medical Council in 1995, Alemi claimed to have qualified at the University of Auckland, with a forged letter of verification referring to “six years medical trainee with satisfactory grade”. A vetting failure did not pick up that Alemi's records showed that she completed only the first stage of the degree and had been excluded from re-enrolment after multiple failures.
An investigative journalist claims
The records showed she had the requisite medical degree, a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (referred to as MBChB), awarded in 1992 by the University of Auckland. It took only three of four phone calls to confirm that Alemi’s medical degree was a fiction.
Alemi was at times was employed by the NHS, worked at health bodies and trusts, and secured positions through recruitment agencies.
t Alemi had been convicted of three fraud offences at Carlisle crown court in 2018 after forging an 84-year-old woman’s will to make herself the beneficiary and forging powers of attorney. She was sentenced to five years in prison in that case.
The UK General Medical Council (which had dealt with nine complaints, "all were investigated fully") states
We are confident that the robust checks we use today would identify anyone attempting to join the register dishonestly. A doctor applying for registration today in the same scenario would be required to:
- have their primary qualification verified with the relevant university by the *ECFMG – the body that verifies the credentials of healthcare professionals worldwide
- sit and pass both parts of Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) test or provide equivalent evidence of their medical knowledge and skills
- provide comprehensive employment history and references for the most recent five years
- provide a certificate of good standing from the regulator in each country they had practised in over those five years
- attend the GMC offices in person to undergo an ID check bringing all original documentation with them. These documents are then examined in detail. This includes physical and light machine examination – each document is examined for signs of amendment, tampering or falsification.. We also use a Keesing document checker – Keesing Technologies is a specialist provider of digital anti-counterfeiting and authentication solutions. In addition, we have access to a system called PRADO – a multi-lingual site for disseminating information on security features of authentic identity and travel documents
Alemi was investigated by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in 2012 after failing to disclose a conviction for careless driving. At that time the Tribunal looked into a complaint that she had wrongly sectioned a patient, issuing a warning. The GMC is unable to bring disciplinary charges against Alemi because she is not a real doctor and so cannot be struck off the medical register.
The British Medical Journal notes that in 2017 Conrad de Souza was convicted for false representations about his qualifications, employment history and previous convictions. He had been jailed in 2011 for 27 months after posing as a GP and working for nine years in NHS roles in south London. De Souza did not complete medical school, had invented his date of birth and falsely claimed to have studied at Dulwich College. Inadequate checking meant he was able to work in clinical strategy roles for the former Lewisham Primary Care Trust for nine years. The 2011 conviction appears to have been triggered by forgery regarding his manipulation of a paternity test in order to evade child support obligations.
The 2017 conviction followed him admitting six charges of fraud at Croydon Crown Court in 2016 after falsifying his employment and qualifications in an attempt to secure senior health roles in the NHS between 2013 and 2014, presumably after early release from prison.
