Fraud nurse hospital to try and recoup £95K loss

A infirmary which paid astir £95,000 successful wages to a fraudulent caregiver has said it volition effort to get immoderate of the wealth back.

Tanya Nasir, 45, was appointed arsenic the neonatal ward manager astatine The Princess of Wales Hospital successful Bridgend successful 2019, but she lied astir her qualifications and experience.

She was sentenced to 5 years successful prison connected Thursday aft being found guilty of 9 counts of fraud and fraud by mendacious representation.

Nasir is besides expected to beryllium removed from the registry of nurses by the regulatory assemblage The Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Nasir worked astatine the portion for 5 months earlier suspicions were raised. She was suspended and aboriginal resigned.

Her sentencing hearing was told she earned a full of £94,941.10 from Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, arsenic good arsenic a further astir £115,000 crossed 2 roles astatine The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust successful London, which she besides secured fraudulently.

A Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) proceeding is owed to beryllium held adjacent March and it is thought she volition beryllium capable to support immoderate of the earnings, but not the afloat wage of a qualified Band 7 neonatal ward manager.

Nasir from Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, claimed to person specializer objective and world qualifications.

She said she was an Army Reserve medic who had served successful Afghanistan and claimed to person taken portion successful humanitarian missions successful Kosovo, Syria and Kenya. These were each lies.

She gained an big nursing qualification successful 2014, but claimed to person qualified 4 years earlier successful 2010, and created mendacious certificates to enactment her story.

When she went to enactment successful the paediatric portion astatine Hillingdon, she told her caller colleagues she had worked successful intensive attraction astatine the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for 5 years.

When she made the claims again during her interviews with NHS antagonistic fraud investigators, they told her HMRC had nary grounds of her ever paying taxation connected a wage for moving there.

Her reply was that she had volunteered determination - for 5 years.

Tanya Nasir studied astatine Buckinghamshire New University, but she had convictions for payment fraud and was sentenced to unpaid enactment portion she was studying.

When the assemblage recovered out, they asked wherefore she had not disclosed it arsenic she was required to.

She said she had spoken to the probation work who said she did not person to disclose it. She provided a transcript of a fake missive to beryllium the point.

It was the paediatric matron successful Bridgend who spotted the prevarication astir her qualification date, portion checking her registration codification which each nurses, midwives and caregiver associates indispensable person to enactment successful the UK.

The codification revealed her existent qualification date, making Nasir - the ward manager with a "World's Best Nurse" ornament connected her table - 1 of the slightest qualified members of the portion staff.

The probe which followed uncovered a analyzable web of lies.

Her claims of serving successful the "Royal British Army”, arsenic she incorrectly called it, had led her to request each summertime disconnected to be grooming camps.

She did not attraction astir what happened to her colleagues who had to screen for her, galore of whom besides had children.

She would nonstop photos to her colleagues backmost home, telling them she was successful Afghanistan, Cyprus oregon Kenya.

One photograph, which she said was taken successful Kenya, showed her successful azygous successful an bureau - with a precise British looking drainpipe done the double-glazed model down her.

At the time, her friends saw nary crushed to uncertainty her, with 1 adjacent jokingly calling her "ma'am" successful a WhatsApp message.

One erstwhile workfellow told BBC Wales: "She would speech astir the Army each the time, it would travel up successful tons of conversations.

"She would accidental she couldn't travel to enactment due to the fact that she was successful Afghanistan, oregon Kenya."

And, erstwhile she was astatine work, colleagues said she wanted radical to deliberation she was a hero, for combining her nursing and Army reserve careers with beingness arsenic a azygous mum who had fled an abusive relationship.

Another erstwhile workfellow said: "The lone mode I tin picture her is that she made radical consciousness atrocious for her due to the fact that of her past.

"She utilized to truly effort to intimidate inferior members of staff. She would question them astir their objective signifier portion they were doing it.

"Not due to the fact that they were wrong, she was doing it to marque them consciousness similar they were doing thing incorrect and arsenic truthful she could larn done it arsenic well."

But Nasir did not person the objective skills she claimed to person including, crucially, paediatric resuscitation.

NHS antagonistic fraud investigators Neil Jones and Beverley Jones, who are some erstwhile constabulary officers, led the investigation.

They said they had ne'er met anyone similar Tanya Nasir.

"She was belligerent successful her answers. She was determined to instrumentality to the information that she had done thing incorrect astatine all," said Ms Jones.

"It was astounding really, the lies that she told and however she maintained those lies passim the people of the probe and the proceedings here."

In 1 recorded interview, Mr Jones said: "We've intelligibly established that you've ne'er served successful immoderate capableness successful the Army arsenic an officer, a regular worker oregon a reservist. There's wide unequivocal witnesser grounds to these facts."

He asked Nasir if she agreed that immoderate of the accusation she had provided successful her exertion forms was "fraudulent", to which she simply responded: "No."

In different interview, Ms Jones asked wherefore each the charities she claimed to person worked with connected overseas humanitarian missions had ne'er heard of her.

Nasir responded: "There isn't a tenable explanation. At the extremity of the day, I tin lone springiness an relationship of what I've done. I can't springiness an relationship of their grounds keeping."

At 1 point, she was asked for her subject work fig and said she could not callback it. She besides could not retrieve which airdrome she flew to Basra successful Afghanistan from, suggesting Heathrow, Stansted oregon Gatwick.

But possibly the astir telling infinitesimal successful those interviews was erstwhile she was asked astir her qualifications.

Nasir claimed to person degrees successful subjects including physics and astrophysics, arsenic good arsenic qualifications successful operating theatre technique, leadership, teaching and galore more.

Asked wherefore nary of the universities had immoderate grounds of her, she said: "I don't know... each I tin archer you is that if I was going to unreal to person qualifications, determination are amended paid jobs than nursing."

Tanya Nasir's defence was twofold - she was a qualified caregiver and nary babies died oregon were injured.

Her barrister told the tribunal she had struggled to enactment herself since her arrest, surviving connected Universal Credit and foodbanks.

He said she was sacked from a occupation successful a pharmacy aft reports of her preliminary tribunal appearances reached her employer.

The tribunal was besides told she had endured a hard commencement to life, a profoundly unhappy puerility and periods successful the attraction strategy - thing not touched upon astatine each during her five-week trial.

Following her sentencing, a situation van arrived to instrumentality Nasir to prison.

Despite her calm, smiling exit from the dock conscionable an hr before, she was walked to the van with her overgarment implicit her head.