A civil servant accused of holding down three full-time jobs simultaneously within different government departments has denied nine counts of fraud.

Kashim Chowdhury, 54, stands accused of full-time employment at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Tower Hamlets council simultaneously.

The charges against Mr. Chowdhury include dishonesty over alleged lies linked to his employment history to a number of government departments.

Appearing at Southwark Crown Court, the former civil servant also stands accused of lying about his employment to six different government bodies between 2020 to 2023, with offences against the Home Office, the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency, and recruitment firm Venn Group, acting on behalf of the East London NHS Trust.

According to a report, suspicions over Mr. Chowdhury were first investigated two years ago after it emerged he was working for both Defra and the DHSC in a full-time capacity.

Only then was it found that he also held a third government role.

Subsequent investigations found that Mr. Chowdhury held two different vetting clearances concurrently across two separate departments.

It's reported that neither the vettings team nor the departments themselves were aware that he was employed by the other.

Investigators found that on each occasion, Mr. Chowdury had failed to disclose his past civil service employment history.

He was then reportedly sacked from all three when the lies were discovered.

Southwark crown court heard that between June 2020 and June 2022 Chowdhury allegedly committed fraud by false representation, after telling Defra that he had ceased his role at Tower Hamlets council on June 15, 2020.

He is also accused of telling the council between April 2021 and June 2022 that he had no additional employment.

He is also said to have told Venn that he was not ?providing services to any other third party? during his contracted hours.

Further offences also include false representation to Defra, after telling the department he was not ?impeded in fulfilling? his contracted hours.

He also allegedly told three separate departments ? DHSC, the Home Office and the trade department ? that he was not already a civil servant.

Mr. Chowdhury denies all nine counts against him.

A government spokesman previously said it had "stepped up efforts" to improve detection processes to prevent such fraud happening again.

It said: 'We have expanded the use of data analytics within the National Fraud Initiative, which helped to identify ?510 million in fraud and errors across the public sector between 2022 and 2024.'

The National Fraud Initiative (NFI), the Cabinet Office unit charged with carrying out the investigation, found there was "even more opportunity for individuals to commit fraud by gaining employment with several local authorities at the same time but failing to fulfill all of the roles". (LBC, but headline rejigged)

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