Civil servant convicted after secretly holding jobs at eight public-sector employers

Kashim Chowdhury was found guilty of nine fraud offences after secretly holding overlapping jobs across eight public-sector employers, earning £350,000 between 2020 and 2023. His case exposed gaps in how government departments check whether new recruits already work elsewhere.

The 56-year-old, who had five jobs at the same time in May 2023, fraudulently obtained more than £284,000 of public money, the BBC reports. He was caught in 2024 by the National Fraud Initiative, which checks civil service databases such as payroll every two years for anomalies. A judge told him he faced a “very substantial custodial sentence”.

The BBC says the Civil Service’s recruitment and HR systems are not centralised. Chowdhury did not declare on application forms that he was already a civil servant, so departments hiring independently failed to detect the overlap. He was contracted to work 183 hours a week at one point.

His line manager at the UK Health Security Agency raised concerns after a May 2023 video call, when Chowdhury was on sick leave. She told his trial that he appeared to be wearing make-up to look ill, an allegation he denied. After she challenged him about logging into the call with a Defra email address, he blamed a technical error, she said.

Chowdhury told the court he took on multiple roles because he feared losing his livelihood after insecure employment. The prosecution argued that his conduct was deliberate dishonesty. A jury found him guilty after seven hours of deliberation.

A Defra spokesperson said the department would continue efforts to recover the proceeds of the offences and that the government had strengthened employment checks. The BBC also reports that a recent survey by think tank Re:State found 76% of 1,700 civil servants surveyed thought the Civil Service did not do a good job of tackling poor performance.

The case is separate from a legal dispute with Chowdhury’s siblings, who accuse him of bullying their mother into signing over half her £2.1m home to him. He denies that allegation.