A jury at Southwark Crown Court found Kashim Chowdhury, a civil servant from east London, guilty of nine counts of fraud after he held overlapping full-time public-sector jobs, the BBC reported on Monday¹.

The BBC said jurors deliberated for seven hours and returned unanimous verdicts on eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by a failure to disclose¹. Prosecutors described the 56-year-old’s conduct as deliberate dishonesty and said he had exploited the system¹.

According to that account, Chowdhury had five government jobs that overlapped in spring 2023 and fraudulently received more than £284,000 in public money¹. From 2020 to 2023 he held eight overlapping full-time public-sector roles that together paid £350,000, the BBC said¹.

The prosecution told the court he gave inaccurate employment details on application forms and did not tell departments he was already a civil servant, then kept other roles secret once hired¹. He was allowed to work entirely from home after saying he cared for his mother, who had dementia and was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2023, the report said¹.

Rather than cut his hours, he took on more work, the BBC reported, listing jobs in spring 2023 at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office¹. In that period he was contracted to work 183 hours a week, more hours than exist in seven days, according to the same report¹.

The BBC account did not include a sentencing date or a statement from Chowdhury after the verdict¹.

Sources

1. BBCCivil servant who juggled five jobs found guilty of fraud10:24 AM

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