Ex-Labour candidate unmasked as NHS fraudster who cost taxpayer £170k

A former Labour parliamentary candidate has been jailed for four years after using a fake Oxford degree to land more than a dozen senior NHS roles – before going on sick leave to avoid doing the jobs.

Amran Hussain, 40, was Labour’s candidate for North East Hampshire in the 2015 general election before embarking on an eight-year campaign of fraud that cost the taxpayer £168,000.

Using fake certificates and ficтιтious references, he fabricated degrees from the universities of Oxford, Harvard and Birkbeck to blag his way into 13 senior NHS roles across the country, including some with salaries of more than £78,000-a-year.

He secured the roles despite barely doing any work, quickly going on sick leave after each appointment and remaining absent until the contract ended or was terminated.

Hussain took an astonishing 1,332 sick days (70 per cent of his days employed) by claiming he had a litany of illnesses, including post Covid-19 syndrome, tiredness, anxiety, depression, low mood, headaches, neck pain, pelvic pain, vertigo, headaches and dizziness and migraines. 

His deception finally unravelled in 2021, when Devon Partnership NHS Trust offered him a £90,000-a-year role as deputy chief operating officer and carried out checks on his application – discovering no record of his claimed job at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.

He was arrested on November 24, 2022, at a secluded cottage in Westerham, Kent, which he had been renting from the aristocratic Astor family.

Hussain’s brazen lies even continued in court, when her claimed he was a war hero who had served two tours with the British Army. When the judge asked where he had served, he was exposed as nothing more than a Walter Mitty character, who had only been an Army Reservist. 

Amran Hussain, pictured with the then Labour leader Ed Miliband, when he was the party’s candidate for North East Hampshire in the general election in 2015

Amran Hussain, 40, has been jailed for four years after his eight-year trail of deception finally came to a. He cost the taxpayer £170,000 by defrauding the NHS

Hussain sparked outrage in 2015, when he took a selfie at the beach where 30 Britons were murdered in a mᴀssacre in Tunisia 

At the 2015 general election, Hussain was defeated by a staggering majority, receiving just 5,290 votes compared to the victorious Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena’s 35,573 votes.

Pictures from his social media show him posing with Ed Miliband, then leader of the Labour Party, and comedian and actor Suzy Eddie Izzard – who failed in a bid to become a Labour candidate – during his campaign trail.

In June that year, he sparked outrage by posing for a selfie at the exact spot where, two days earlier, a crazed gunman mᴀssacred dozens of tourists on Marhaba Beach in Sousse, Tunisia.

In total, 38 holidaymakers, including up to 30 Britons, were slaughtered by ISIS militant Seifeddine Rezgui as they ran for their lives, and another 39 were wounded. 

Standing in front of a memorial of flowers and tributes to the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, Hussain, wearing mirrored sunglᴀsses and surrounded by three friends, filmed the site where the attack happened.

Hussain defended his actions at the time, telling the Mail: ‘Selfies are not banned. I don’t see anything wrong with it. We were not capturing a happy moment, we were very distressed after what happened and we went down to the beach for 30 minutes to show solidarity.’

It’s understood he is no longer a Labour Party member.

Hussain’s extraordinary campaign of fraud dates back to July 2014, when he was a Labour politician, but it ramped up after his election defeat, continuing until September 2022.

During this time, he applied for 2,071 NHS jobs, with his 13 fraudulent roles costing the British taxpayer £168,072.41.

Out of a total of 1,902 days employed, Hussain took 1,332 days off sick – the equivalent of three years and nearly eight months. 

Two of his roles were NHS band 8D, where his salary would have been more than £78,000-a-year at the time of his employment (they are more than £100k today). 

The most experienced role he blagged his way into was as the head of outpatient pathway redesign for University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust. 

After signing his contract, he worked just one shift from the 116 days he was employed, claiming 115 days of sick leave.

How he was able to repeatedly pᴀss reference checks and go undetected for so many years remains a mystery. 

Fake degree from Birkbeck, University of London, that Hussain used to trick employers

The secluded Kent cottage where Hussain was arrested. He was renting it from Charles Astor and Princess Eliane de Merode of Belgium 

The view from Hussain’s cottage. He was arrested here in November 2022 after he was finally exposed

Hussain’s fraud was finally exposed after Devon Partnership NHS Trust offered him a deputy chief operating officer role in 2021 and carried out checks on his application.

He had claimed to be the director of transformation and improvement at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust. But the NHS found no record of his employment and they later discovered he had never worked there.

They subsequently discovered he had tricked his way into 13 different NHS roles.

Despite getting hired for several high-income NHS roles over eight years, it’s understood Hussain’s fraud only amounted to £168,000 because he would often be on sick leave and therefore not receive his full yearly salaries.

Hussain was also found to have fraudulently secured jobs outside of the NHS, including at NottinghamCityCare Partnership and Kent County Council.

The Daily Mail can reveal today that Hussain was finally arrested on November 24, 2022, at a secluded countryside cottage in Westerham, Kent, which is owned by the wealthy Astor family.

Hussain’s money-making scheme meant he could afford to rent the two-bedroom cottage from his aristocratic landlords, Charles Astor and his royal wife, Princess Eliane de Merode of Belgium. There is no suggestion they were aware their tenant was a serial fraudster.

Hussain pictured with the world’s fastest sprinter, Usain Bolt, at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014

Hussain grew up with his sister and two brothers in Beckton, east London, but had been living on the Astors’ sprawling estate with his partner until February this year.

When the Daily Mail visited Westerham this week, locals were stunned by the scandal in their ‘тιԍнт-knit’ community and admitted Hussain had rubbed them up the wrong way.

Paul, who lived in the cottage for five years before the fraudster moved in, told the Daily Mail that he was boot Hussain off the neighbourhood WhatsApp group.

‘He joined our local WhatsApp group for crime alerts, which is a bit ironic,’ he said. ‘But he was so stroppy, I had to kick him off. He was so tricky.’

The cottage is at the end of a half-mile country lane, with stunning panoramic views across the Kent countryside.

Paul, in his 60s, said Hussain posted that he was unhappy about people walking past his cottage, which is a public footpath, with torches.

‘I told him he could rejoin if he apologised and calmed down, but he didn’t. He was just being vociferous and awkward. I had to nip it in the bud.’

Speaking about his time at the cottage, Paul said: ‘I had five lovely years there. It’s a very isolated property; it is tucked right out of the way. No wonder he wanted to keep his head down.

He added: ‘It’s a two-bedroom cottage tucked around National Trust land, with the Astors’ land around it.

‘I rented it through Charles’s father, Lord Astor, and his mother. They have retired and he [Charles] took over the estate.’

Due to how remote Hussain’s cottage was, many of his ‘neighbours’ had never met him and the few that had was only when they were driving by or walking past the cottage on countryside hikes.

One local recalled Hussain’s partner skidding their car into the Astors’ fence and another said they would blare music while driving down the narrow country lane.

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: ‘It’s shocking, I had no idea. We are a quiet, тιԍнт-knit community. I used to see him drive past, but he lived up at the cottage on the Astors’ estate.’

Another resident said she spoke to Hussain’s partner while she was walking up the lane from the ‘isolated’ cottage.

While out on police bail, Hussain was elected as a councillor for Crockham Hill, a ward within Westerham Town Council, in the 2023 elections.

Hussain with comedian and actor Suzy Eddie Izzard when he was on the campaign trail as a Labour candidate in 2015

A retired Westerham councillor and neighbour told the Mail: ‘He became a Westerham councillor. Somebody said I should talk to him because he had so many great ideas and he tried to contact me once. They said somebody is moving up near you and he’s getting onto the council.

‘It’s amazing these characters. You just think what? You just never know what’s going on.’

The selfie-loving fraudster has also posted pictures alongside the world’s fastest sprinter Usain Bolt, who he met while volunteering at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Many years earlier, as a schoolboy in 2005, he accused the late Queen Elizabeth II of undermining London’s Olympic dream by saying she thought Paris would win the bid to host the 2012 Games over Britain.

Hussain, who attended a Buckingham Palace Christmas reception for 500 guests chosen for their outstanding contributions to civic life, said he asked the Queen about what she thought about the Olympics coming to London.

‘I told her I was from Newham, a London borough which is backing the bid for 2012.

‘I thought she would be really enthusiastic and go into the economic benefits, but she straightaway said she thought that Paris would win. I was quite shocked, because she had previously been backing the London bid. She said that Paris had a lot of backing from the public and that we don’t have that, unfortunately.’

The alleged unpatriotic opinion for the then monarch caused a headache for the Palace, who sought to dismiss any suggestion that the head of state was not in full support of London’s application.

Seven years later, Hussain became a volunteer at the London 2012 games and appeared on Sky News at least twice to discuss his experience.

The desire to speak to the national media and share selfies with celebrities and politicians has dwindled in recent years, as he swapped this glitzy lifestyle for a quieter life in his cottage.

Hussain was sentenced to four years in prison on July 24. He previously admitted three counts of fraud by false representation at Maidstone Crown Court.

Ben Harrison, Head of Operations at the NHS Counter Fraud Authority, said: ‘Hussain engaged in a sustained pattern of fraud, repeatedly misrepresenting his experience and qualifications to secure senior roles he was not enтιтled to hold.’

He added: ‘Such behaviour undermines trust in NHS recruitment processes and diverts public money away from frontline services.

‘We will continue to work closely with NHS organisations to strengthen recruitment controls, protect public funds and ensure those who abuse the system are held to account.’

A spokesperson for Birkbeck, University of London, said it treated fraudulent degrees ‘extremely seriously’.