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 working them.
Amran Hussain, 40, was Labour’s candidate for North East Hampshire in the 2015 general election before turning his hand to an eight-year campaign of fraud that cost the taxpayer £168,000.
Using fake certificates and fictitious references, he fabricated degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Birkbeck, University of London, 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 role at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.
He was finally 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 he made up that 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 a Walter Mitty who had only been an Army reserve.
Amran Hussain is pictured in 2015, when he was the Labour candidate for North East Hampshire in the general election. He is seen shaking hands with the then Labour leader Ed Miliband
Amran Hussain (pictured now), 40, has been jailed for four years after his eight-year trail of deception finally came to a halt. 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 massacre in Tunisia
Hussain stood as Labour’s candidate for North East Hampshire at the 2015 general election.
But he was defeated by a staggering majority and received just 5,290 votes compared to victorious Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena’s 35,573 votes.
Pictures from his social media show him posing with Ed Miliband, then the leader of the Labour Party, and Suzy Eddie Izzard during his campaign trail.
In June that year, he sparked outrage by posing for a selfie at the exact spot where a crazed gunman massacred 38 holidaymakers, including up to 30 Britons, at Marhaba Beach in Sousse, Tunisia.
With the sun loungers where dozens of tourists were slaughtered by ISIS militant Seifeddine Rezgui clearly visible in the background, he looked directly at the camera on the end of a selfie stick in aviator-style sunglasses surrounded by three friends.
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 to 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 pass reference checks and go undetected for so many years remains a mystery.
This is a fake degree from Birkbeck, University of London, that Hussain used to trick employers
This is the secluded Kent countryside cottage where Hussain was arrested. He was renting it from Charles Astor and Princess Eliane de Merode of Belgium
This is 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 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.
Charles, a managing director of wealth management firm Henderson Rowe, descends from the Astor family, who were once the richest family in the US. Towards the end of the 19th century, members of the Astor family moved to Britain, and their descendants remain both wealthy and prominent today.
Hussain is pictured alongside world’s fastest sprinter Usain Bolt at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014
Charles’s father is John Astor, 3rd Baron Astor of Hever, who served as the Conservative under secretary of state for defence under former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Princess Eliane is the only daughter of Prince Leonel of Merode and Princess Régine de Merode. She married Hon Charles Astor, heir apparent to the Astor of Hever barony, in June 2017.
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 Mail visited Westerham this week, locals were stunned by the fraud scandal in their ‘tight-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 Mail he was even forced to 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 erupted over people walking past his cottage, which is on a public footpath, with torch lights.
‘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. They could only recall seeing him drive past or walking past the cottage on countryside hikes.
One recalled his 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, tight-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.
‘The land has been in the Astor family for a long time,’ she said.
‘The younger Astor, Charles, rents the cottage out. Lord and Lady Astor moved out some years back now. It’s quite isolated down there.’
While on police bail, Hussain was elected as a councillor for Crockham Hill, a ward within Westerham Town Council, in the 2023 elections.
Hussain pictured with 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 to me 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 had dwindled in recent years, swapping this 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 entitled 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 spokesman for Birkbeck, University of London, said it treated fraudulent degrees ‘extremely seriously’.
