A nursing student and her partner from Thornton Heath who falsely claimed NHS childcare allowances have both been sentenced to 40 weeks’ imprisonment for each of four fraud offences, suspended for two years (Croydon Crown Court, 6th October). The sentencing follows an investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service.

The couple, Sabrina Anver (31) and Syed Khaliduzzaman (32), both pleaded guilty to the four counts at an earlier hearing. Their sentencing was deferred for six months to allow them time to sell a house to pay more money back to the NHS, but it remains unsold. Under a Residency Order they must live at their respective current addresses for at least three months to facilitate planned confiscation.

Khaliduzzaman has so far repaid £10,000 to the NHS and undertook in court to repay the remaining £20,000 plus £1,000 costs.

Anver started a three year nursing diploma course at Kingston University in September 2005. She applied for and was awarded an NHS Bursary allowance for herself on false grounds, claiming she was a single parent with three children, not cohabiting or living with a partner.

After a year’s maternity leave from her studies (June 2006 to October 2007) Anver claimed similar allowances for her fourth child when she returned to the course, again claiming to be a single parent living alone with her children.

Anver had received £50,000 in bursary payments by the time her course place and bursary were suspended, following her arrest in October 2008.

To claim her childcare allowance she had named Syed Khaliduzzaman (also known as Zaman), as her childminder. But the investigation found he was registered with Ofsted as a childminder living at the same address as Anver in Penrith Road, Thornton Heath, Croydon.

The surnames of Anver’s four children are Zaman but Anver initially denied cohabitating with their father or having any relationship other than that of client and childminder with him.

NHS Bursaries cannot pay childcare costs where care is provided in the child’s home and the carer has parental responsibility for the child.

In summing up the judge said that what Anver put in her applications was “blatantly a lie”.

Pauline Smith, North West Operational Fraud Manager, NHS Counter Fraud Service said: “Defrauding the NHS is totally unacceptable. Today’s sentence sends out a clear message to anyone who seeks to commit fraud against the NHS that we will use every appropriate sanction available to us.”

Information supplied by NHS CFS press office