Civil servant ‘wasn’t thinking straight’ over five jobs fraud trial

A civil servant accused of juggling multiple public sector roles while on full-time pay told a court he “wasn’t thinking straight” when he failed to declare his existing employment. Kashim Chowdhury, 55, from east London, denies nine counts of fraud. He said he was “in a panic” when applying for a job at the Department of Health (DHSC) and did not mention he was already working at the Department for the Environment (Defra).

Prosecution case

Prosecutors say Chowdhury already had three full-time jobs at that point, including positions at Tower Hamlets council and East London NHS Trust. But he feared losing his Defra role and was unsure about his future. “Not paying attention, I was not thinking straight,” he told the jury.

At the height of the alleged deceit, Chowdhury held five jobs on full-time salaries. In spring 2023, he worked for Defra, the UK Health Security Agency, the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Home Office. He was contracted to work 183 hours a week—more hours than exist in seven days—and each job paid a full-time wage. He received £11,000 for a single month’s work in 2023.

Prosecutors claim Chowdhury exploited the work-from-home culture that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic to hide his overlapping jobs. He took sick leave from some employers to manage his workload. Yet Chowdhury said he had not wanted the jobs at DHSC, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Home Office. He said he sent out a flurry of applications, but the offers came all at once. He discussed with line managers that he did not want those roles and explained his circumstances. They were short-term and probationary, and his priority was caring for his mother.

Around May and June 2022, his mother’s health deteriorated. “That overwhelmed me at the time. It just destroyed me,” he said. The jobs gave him a link to the outside world and a distraction from his personal life. Prosecutors allege he kept the overlapping jobs secret because he worked entirely remotely and told employers he was the sole carer for his elderly mother. They say he exploited this opportunity.