04.01.11
NHS manager invented care home to steal £117,000
An NHS manager turned con-artist stole over £117,000 by inventing a fictional care home and stealing patients’ identities to stock it with residents.
The money came from funds meant for the continuing care of patients, including the terminally ill. The crime was described as a “shocking breach of trust”.
Ololade ‘Lola’ Ibironke Mabun, 33, who was living at Aiston Place in Aylesbury, was Continuing Care Manager for Buckinghamshire NHS Primary Care Trust when she stole the money.
She was sentenced to four years’ in prison at Aylesbury Crown Court on Wednesday after an investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service. She was found guilty of Fraud by Abuse of Position.
Between April and July 2009, Buckinghamshire PCT received 31 invoices from the fictitious home, which she called “Made House, 22 Winnings Way, Northolt, Middlesex”, for the continuing care of five ‘residents’ whose identities had been copied illicitly from a register of genuine NHS patients.
These invoices were paid, so during this period, £117,812.30 was paid by the PCT to a Barclays bank account belonging to Bodylon Oyeyinka Fayoyin, 47, of River View, Chadwell St Mary, Grays, Essex. He was also convicted as a result of the investigation, and is now in custody awaiting sentencing after he was found guilty of two money laundering offences.
Concerns were raised in July 2009 when a contracts manager tried to visit the home, only to find that neither it nor the street existed.
Investigators found a Made House email account that was regularly accessed from a computer in Nigeria, and once from a computer in the UK, registered to Mabun. Analysis of Mabun’s laptop showed it had been used to create and amend false patient records on the continuing care register.
Barclays has since recovered £46,000 of the fraudulently taken money, and repaid it to the NHS.
Mabun was suspended and dismissed by the trust for gross misconduct, a decision upheld at appeal.
In summing up Mabun’s sentence, the Judge, the Lord Parmoor, described the fraud as ‘very sophisticated’, saying: “There is overwhelming evidence to convict her. She blamed other innocent members of the trust for the fraud. She was the organiser of the fraud or passed information to allow others to organise it.”
Nicole McLaughlin, South East Operational Fraud Manager, NHS Counter Fraud Service, said: “Fortunately it is only a small minority of people who abuse their position of trust in this way, and Mabun’s actions are a shock to her colleagues as well as to the public. We will always follow up any suspicions of fraud against the NHS reported to us, investigating wherever appropriate. We press for prosecution and the strongest sanctions against those found guilty.”
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