By Emmanuella Opara | November 9th 2026
KEY POINTS
- Kashim Chowdhury was found guilty of nine fraud offences after secretly holding multiple government jobs.
- He fraudulently obtained more than £284,000 in taxpayers’ money, according to the prosecution.
- He secured eight overlapping full-time public sector roles between 2020 and 2023, earning about £350,000.
- The fraud was uncovered in 2024 through the UK Government’s National Fraud Initiative.
MAIN STORY
A British civil servant, Kashim Chowdhury, has been convicted of nine counts of fraud after concealing multiple government jobs and obtaining more than £284,000 in taxpayers’ money.
Chowdhury, 56, from east London, was found guilty by a jury of eight counts of fraud by false representation and one count of fraud by failing to disclose information. The jury reached its unanimous verdict after seven hours of deliberation.
The court heard that he secured eight overlapping full-time public sector positions between 2020 and 2023, earning a total of about £350,000. At the peak of the arrangement in the spring of 2023, he was holding five government jobs simultaneously.
His employers included 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 Office.
Prosecutors said Chowdhury supplied inaccurate information about his employment status on job application forms and failed to disclose his existing positions to the departments that recruited him. He also did not inform his employers that he was working for other organisations.
The scale of his commitments became apparent from evidence that he was contracted to work 183 hours a week in the spring of 2023, more than the total hours available in a seven-day week.
Chowdhury had been permitted to work entirely from home after telling his employers he was caring for his mother, who had dementia and was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2023. However, the court heard that he continued accepting additional roles rather than reducing his workload.
He told the court that his decision to take multiple jobs was driven by fears of losing his livelihood following earlier experiences of insecure employment. He said he had been made redundant from a position at the Department for Education in 2013 and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Explaining his state of mind during the recruitment process, he said he had not been thinking clearly because of stress, distress, trauma and panic.
The prosecution, however, accused him of deliberate dishonesty. It also alleged that he used sick leave to manage his overlapping employment commitments.
In March 2023, Chowdhury was reportedly on sick leave from four organisations while continuing to work at the Home Office without disclosing that he was ill.
His conduct also came under scrutiny during a video meeting arranged by his line manager at the UK Health Security Agency, Aleesha Adams, in May 2023. Adams said she had arranged the meeting to discuss his return to work after three months of sick leave.
She told the jury that Chowdhury appeared to be coughing and waving tissues towards the camera. She further alleged that he had applied white make-up to his face to make himself appear ill, claiming that it began to rub off during the meeting. Chowdhury denied wearing make-up and described the allegation as a smear.
Adams also said she discovered that he had joined the meeting using an email address belonging to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. When questioned, he attributed the incident to a technical error. She said her suspicions prompted her to report her concerns to senior officials.
Evidence from another former manager, Dan McCartney, who supervised Chowdhury at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, also featured in the trial. McCartney said he had to direct him throughout his work and recalled that he frequently switched off his camera during video calls, citing technical problems.
Despite the concerns, Chowdhury was offered a permanent position at the department and remained there for two years because he had not been placed under formal performance measures.
The prosecution described his conduct as an exploitation of the system. He eventually left the civil service in September 2023.
His activities were identified the following year through the UK Government’s National Fraud Initiative, which carries out periodic checks of civil service databases, including payroll records, to detect irregularities.
THE ISSUES
The case highlights weaknesses that can arise when public sector recruitment and payroll systems do not adequately identify overlapping employment across government departments.
Chowdhury’s ability to secure several full-time positions while concealing his existing jobs exposed gaps in the exchange of employment information between public institutions. The reported 183-hour weekly commitment also raises concerns about how working arrangements and staff performance were monitored across the departments involved.
The case further demonstrates the role of cross-government data checks in detecting potential payroll fraud, although the investigation only identified his activities in 2024, after he had left the civil service.
WHAT’S BEING SAID
“He’s lied to you in evidence, he’s lied to you under oath, which demonstrates the level of deceit he has descended to,” Lucy Organ, prosecuting barrister, told the jury.
“I believed he was lying,” Aleesha Adams, his former line manager at the UK Health Security Agency, told the jury.
WHAT’S NEXT
Chowdhury has been found guilty of all nine fraud counts. The report supplied does not state the date of sentencing or the penalty he faces.
BOTTOM LINE
The conviction followed a period in which Chowdhury secretly held several government jobs and obtained hundreds of thousands of pounds in public funds. His case has exposed weaknesses in the monitoring of overlapping public sector employment and the detection of payroll irregularities.
