'Need for thorough inquiry' - judge who jailed Zholia Alemi

Zholia Alemi – whose last job as a consultant psychiatrist was at Workington Community Hospital – enjoyed a lucrative career, earning in excess of £1m and treating possibly thousands of vulnerable patients.

Her powers included prescibing powerful medication and even the opportunity to play a key role in detaining some patients for "compulsory treatment."

She was able to do that work after providing primary medical qualifications – a degree certificate and a university letter of verification - which were clearly forged, containing glaring grammatical and spelling mistakes.

• SEE ALSO: Judge highlights GMC failings over fake doctor exposed by News & Star

Incredibly, officials at the UK's General Medical Council (GMC) never noticed those mistakes on Alemi's primary qualification documents.

It took only two phone calls by News & Star Chief Reporter Phil Coleman – one to The University of Auckland where Alemi claimed to have qualified and one to News Zealand’s General Medical Council – to confirm that Alemi never finished her medical degree.

Alemi tried to keep a low profile as she left Carlisle Crown Court in 2018. (Image: Newsquest)

She was thrown off the course a year in because she was struggling to achieve the necessary results.

After she jailed Alemi for seven years, Judge Hilary Manley told prosecutor Chris Stables: “Anything more than a cursory glance at the degree certificate and purported letter of verification on any view should have prompted a telephone call or a letter to the University of Auckland to determine whether those were genuine.

“Such an enquiry did immediately reveal the truth. That enquiry was not made until 2018, almost 25 years after those documents were submitted to the GMC and only after the prompting of an outside agency.”

The judge noted that the investigation of Alemi’s fabricated study history was made not by the GMC but by a News & Star journalist.

Judge Manley commented also on the evidence given during Alemi’s trial by a GMC official, who told the jury that the scrutiny of qualifications at the time Alemi came to the UK had been subject to “thorough scrutiny” and that her primary qualifications were subjected to “rigorous checks.”

Yet in a subsequent statement, the GMC has conceded that the checking processes 27 years ago were inadequate and that they are now “more robust.”

• SEE ALSO: ​'How did she get away with it?' - inside story the bogus 'Dr Alemi'

“That seems to contradict the evidence provided at this trial by representative of the GMC,” said the judge. That evidence, said the judge, had the potential to mislead.

The judge said there needed to be a "thorough, and open and transparent” enquiry into the failings which allowed Alemi to submit documents which were clearly forged.

She also asked why it had taken a journalist to uncover the truth behind Alemi’s deception; and why the GMC official had provided evidence which did not tally with their later admission that checking procedures in 1995 were not so rigorous.

The judge told Alemi: "You benefited from that failure and of course from your own deliberate and calculated dishonesty.

Detective Superintendent Matt Scott led Operation Rupture, the global investigation of Zholia Alemi conducted by Cumbria Police. (Image: Newsquest)

"As a result, you were at liberty to practise as a doctor, and later as a consultant psychiatrist, for over twenty years.

"You moved about a lot, taking up short term appointments as a locum, and I am satisfied you did this at least in part to ensure that the finger of suspicion did not have a chance to point at you, or if it did, once you had moved to another NHS Trust or healthcare provider, you were effectively out of sight and out of mind as far as your previous employers were concerned.

"You were able to receive in renumeration, well in excess of a million pounds.”

The News & Star investigated Alemi after she was convicted of attempting to forge the will of  a west Cumbrian widow.

That crime was exposed thanks to an alert carer, who reported her suspicions about Alemi to the police. Yet when she was convicted of that fraud in 2018, everybody accepted that Alemi was a qualified doctor.

Still addressing Alemi, who wept as the case conclued, the judge went on: “You were caught out and after a trial you were convicted and sentenced to a period of five years’ imprisonment.

“It was only after that trial, and due to the investigations of a local journalist, that the truth was uncovered: that you had never actually qualified as a doctor.”

Alemi sought to explain her behaviour by claiming that suffers from autism, though there has been no medical evidence of that provided to the court, said Judge Manley.

Alemi's class photo from when she began her academic studies at the University of Auckland. (Image: UGC)

The judge added: “Your autism, however, does not preclude you from also being highly manipulative and cunning.

“I also note that during the course of the trial, through your lawyers, you sought to portray almost every prosecution witness as inept or dishonest, and called into question the integrity and impartiality of an expert witness.”

The judge noted the “potential harm” caused by Alemi, an unqualified doctor, treating vulnerable patients, being able to prescribe powerful and dangerous drugs and to impose curbs on their liberty.

The judge said: “That the degree certificate and supporting letter were accepted by the GMC represents an abject failure of scrutiny; you benefitted from that failure and from your own deliberate and calculated dishonesty.” The judge also commented that Alemi’s offending led to a loss of trust in NHS trusts and other healthcare providers.