- Published
Aleesha Adams joined a video call with Kashim Chowdhury in May 2023.
uncertain
Adams → publish → May
He'd been on sick leave from his job at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) for nearly three months and Adams, his line manager, wanted to put a plan in action to ease him back into work.
asserted
Adams → want → work
At the start of the call, Chowdhury was coughing and waving tissues up to the camera in an attempt to show how ill he was.
asserted
he → cough → attempt
But what really caught Adams' attention was how pale he looked.
asserted
he → catch → attention
She noticed white powder had started separating from his forehead.
asserted
powder → notice → forehead
"He was sweating, it was like rubbing off, so it was darker underneath and darker on the neck," she told his trial.
asserted
she → sweat → trial
She claimed he was wearing white make-up to look sick.
asserted
he → claim → up
Something he denied in court.
asserted
he → deny → court
Fraudulent behaviour went undetected
Little did she know UKHSA was not Chowdhury's only employer.
asserted
UKHSA → go → ?
That month, he was also being paid to work full-time for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office.
asserted
he → pay → Business
He was contracted to work 183 hours a week – more than the number of hours in seven days.
asserted
He → contract → days
He fraudulently earned more than £284,000 of taxpayers' money.
asserted
He → earn → money
In total, he had eight overlapping full-time public-sector jobs between 2020 and 2023.
asserted
he → have → 2020
During that time, this relatively junior civil servant was paid £350,000.
asserted
servant → pay → 350,000
Soon after her call with Chowdhury, Adams discovered that he had logged into the call using a Defra email address.
asserted
he → discover → address
When she challenged him about it, he blamed it on a technical error.
asserted
he → challenge → error
She told the jury at his trial at Southwark Crown Court: "I believed he was lying."
asserted
he → tell → Court
She escalated her concerns up the chain.
asserted
She → escalate → chain
But his fraudulent behaviour remained undetected.
asserted
behaviour → remain → ?
Chowdhury was able to keep working multiple government jobs until September 2023 when he left the Civil Service.
asserted
he → keep → Service
He was finally caught in 2024 by the government's National Fraud Initiative, which conducts searches of Civil Service databases, such as payroll, every two years to look for anomalies.
asserted
which → catch → anomalies
On Monday he was found guilty of nine counts of fraud and told by the judge that he would be facing a "very substantial custodial sentence".
asserted
he → find → sentence
Chowdhury, 56, arrived each day at court alone.
asserted
Chowdhury → arrive → court
He is married, yet there never seemed to be any friends or family there to support him.
asserted
He → seem → him
He would often make his way down the corridors of the court building carrying two plastic carrier bags, with a bobble hat perched on his head.
asserted
He → make → head
He sometimes looked bewildered in the witness box.
asserted
He → look → box
Chowdhury, who had a diagnosis of PTSD in 2015, said that he had taken on so many roles because he feared losing his livelihood after experiencing insecure employment.
asserted
he → have → employment
He said he'd been forced out of a job at the Department for Education in 2013.
asserted
he → say → 2013
He said he hadn't been thinking clearly when applying for jobs ''because of my stress, distress and trauma and due to my panic at the time".
asserted
he → say → time
But the prosecution argued his behaviour was "deliberate" and "intentional dishonesty" and that he had exploited the system.
asserted
he → argue → system
However, the case raises important questions for the Civil Service.
asserted
case → raise → Service
How was he able to get away with it for so long?
asserted
he → get → it
Part of the explanation is that the Civil Service's human resources system is not centralised.
asserted
system → centralise → explanation
Chowdhury did not declare on government application forms that he was already a civil servant, so the system did not spot the duplication.
asserted
system → declare → duplication
Hannah Keenan, who works at the Institute for Government, says the system clearly failed.
asserted
system → work → Government
"Government departments are taking hiring decisions independently of each other and without systems that join up," she said.
asserted
she → take → systems
"That the model and the culture surrounding it aren't working shouldn't be a surprise though - we've known for a long time about poor performers flying under the radar by shuffling between jobs."
There are more than 550,000 people employed across the Civil Service, many in offices in Whitehall, in central London.
asserted
performers → surround → London
They are responsible for carrying out government policy and the daily administration of the country.
asserted
They → carry → country
Another reason why Chowdhury's fraud went undetected is that he was working entirely from the east London house he shared with his mother.
asserted
he → go → mother
In 2023, she had dementia and terminal cancer, and he told his employers that he needed to be at home to look after her.
asserted
he → have → her
…and 33 more, not listed.
The Aporia
