E-Paper
UK civil servant Kashim Chowdhury accused of working 5 government jobs at once, wore makeup to fake illness
Kashim Chowdhury managed to exploit ‘work from home’ culture and used fake sick notes to juggle multiple employers, a court has heard.
Prefer HTon Google
A UK civil servant has been accused of holding down at least five full-time government jobs simultaneously. Kashim Chowdhury managed to exploit ‘work from home’ culture and used fake sick notes to juggle multiple employers, a court has heard.
The 55-year-old, from Whitechapel, east London, is said to have earned nearly £350,000 from eight employers between February 2020 and September 2023. At one point, he was working for five organisations at the same time, according to a Press Association report.
Chowdhury has denied nine counts of fraud.
How Chowdhury juggled multiple jobs
Prosecutors told Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday that Chowdhury was being paid for five full-time jobs simultaneously in May 2023.
Kashim Chowdhury was at one point contracted to work 183 hours a week across five jobs — a workload that exceeds the total number of hours in a seven-day week. A week has just 168 hours in total.
Between February 2020 and September 2023, he allegedly earned almost £350,000 from eight employers.
(Also read: Soham Parekh breaks silence: Indian engineer admits to working at multiple startups, says it wasn’t to scam anyone)
Chowdhury began working for Tower Hamlets Council in February 2020 before taking up a second role with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in April 2021, the court heard. Prosecutors said he held both positions for more than a year.
In 2022, he also worked for East London NHS Trust for four months.
Although he subsequently left the council, he continued working for Defra and took on further roles with the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office.
Prosecutors alleged that Chowdhury continued to moonlight and misled employers about his existing jobs to secure the various positions.
Misusing sick leaves
Prosecutor Lucy Organ told the court that Chowdhury used sick leave at some of his jobs to cope with the demands of working for multiple employers. He allegedly "exploited" remote working arrangements introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic and continued afterwards.
The court heard that the 55-year-old claimed to have “mixed anxiety and a depressive disorder”. However, he did not hand sick notes to all his employers.
(Also read: 29-year-old techie earns ₹7 lakh/month by moonlighting with US company, says ₹80 lakh savings aren't enough)
Chowdhury also allegedly told his employers that he needed to work from home to care for his "unwell" mother.
However, his workload eventually became "too much to cope with", prompting him to take sick leave from some of his positions, the court heard.
Using makeup to fake illness
In May 2023, Aleesha Adams, his manager at UKHSA, arranged a video call to discuss his absences.
Adams told the court that Chowdhury appeared to have applied make-up to his face to look unwell. The make-up allegedly began separating on his forehead during the call, revealing his natural skin underneath.
Adams also noticed that his face and neck appeared to be of different colours.
Prosecutor Lucy Organ said: "There could be no doubt about it, the defendant had applied make-up to his face for this Teams meeting to try and pretend to his line manager that he was unwell.
"This almost laughable incident demonstrates, we say, quite how far the defendant was willing to go in his deceit."
The prosecutor also told the jury that Chowdhury made a mistake by joining the meeting using his Defra email address.
When questioned about this, he allegedly suggested that it might have been an old email address. His trial is ongoing.
