A woman has been found guilty of lying about her qualifications and experience to secure a senior nursing role at a Welsh hospital, where she was responsible for the care of sick infants. Tanya Nasir, 45, falsely claimed she had served in the British Army and had been shot, when in reality she had only volunteered with the cadets.
She repeatedly lied on her application form and even created fake certificates to land the band seven position as a ward manager at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, where she worked in a unit for premature babies. Following a five-week trial at Cardiff Crown Court between June and July this year, Nasir was convicted of nine charges including fraud and securing access to unauthorised computer material.
At a sentencing hearing at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Thursday, Judge Richard Kember sentenced Nasir to five years in prison. The court heard that Nasir’s deceit was discovered during a routine revalidation of her Nursing and Midwifery Council registration by her line manager at the Princess of Wales Hospital.
The court heard that further inconsistencies were found in Nasir’s application, leading to her suspension from her post in February 2020. An investigation by the NHS Local Counter-Fraud Authority revealed that Nasir’s deception began in 2010 when she failed to disclose a conviction while studying at Buckinghamshire New University, breaching the university’s fitness to practise policy.
She then fabricated a letter, supposedly from Hertfordshire Probation Service, stating she was under no obligation to disclose her convictions. This letter convinced the university to allow her to continue her studies, reports Wales Online.
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Between 2013 and 2015, Nasir worked as a staff nurse assistant at Hillingdon Hospital in London and later at Spire Bushey Hospital in Watford before returning to Hillingdon. After being appointed as a band seven ward manager at the Princess of Wales Hospital, it was discovered that information provided by Nasir on her application form, and two applications for Hillingdon, were false.
The court heard that Nasir received more than £200,000 in wages at the two hospitals, including just short of £95,000 at the Bridgend hospital. In her application, she claimed she had qualified as a nurse and became registered with the Nursing Midwifery Council in 2010.
However, officers confirmed with the university that she did not qualify until 2014.
Further investigations were carried out with four other universities she claimed to have graduated from. Three confirmed she never attended and the fourth confirmed she did attend but had no record of her receiving one of the qualifications mentioned in her application.
Previous employers listed were also contacted. Many of them confirmed that Nasir was either not employed in the role she claimed to have worked in or that she had never been employed by them at all.
In all three applications, Nasir claimed she had served in the military. She said she had been shot twice while deployed overseas.
The investigation found she had never been in the Army or the Army Reserve and her only connection was a particularly weak one in that she had been a volunteer for the cadet force. When applying for a role at Hillingdon Hospital in 2015, one of the references given was from a commanding officer in the Territorial Army.
The email address she provided for the reference was the one assigned to Nasir whilst she was in the Army Cadet Force. She used this address to fabricate her own reference and bolster her fraudulent job applications.
In July 2019, Nasir provided a reference containing lies and fabrications on behalf of another woman to enable her to also gain employment within the NHS.
Nasir, from Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, was taken into custody on 21 April 2021, and upon searching her property, police seized digital devices and documents. Among the items found were several counterfeit certificates, including assertions of qualifications she did not possess, some of which were completely fictitious.
After her trial, Nasir was found guilty of nine charges ranging from fraud to possession of articles for use in fraud, and attempting unauthorised access to computer material. Suzanne Hardacre, director of midwifery and nursing at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, commented on the potential dangers in her victim impact statement.
She informed the court: “She presented herself as capable of managing crises based on previous experience which were totally fabricated.”
Nasir is sentenced to serve half of her five-year term in prison and the remainder on licence
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