The United Kingdom’s NHS Counter Fraud Authority has announced that a Nigerian doctor, Richard Akinrolabu, has been sentenced to three years in prison for fraud worth £268,000.
According to a statement on the NHSCFA website, Akinrolabu worked as a specialist registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Princess Royal University Hospital. Between 2018 and 2021, he repeatedly told his employer that he was sick and could not do night shifts so he could reduce his workload.
However, while claiming he was unfit to work, he secretly took up jobs in other hospitals and worked the same night and on-call shifts he had refused at his main workplace.
The NHSCFA said:
- Akinrolabu worked night and on-call shifts at three other NHS trusts
- He did this while collecting full salary from King’s College Hospital
- The hospital had to hire locum doctors to cover his missed shifts
- He did not get permission for any secondary employment
In November 2021, King’s College Hospital found out he had been working night shifts at Basildon Hospital. Their fraud team later discovered he had worked several additional on-call shifts there.
The NHSCFA then opened an independent investigation and invited him for an interview in 2022, but he refused to comment. He was later charged with four counts of fraud by false representation.
In court, evidence from different hospitals showed that most of the shifts he worked elsewhere were night or on-call shifts—exactly what he claimed he was medically unfit to do.
Akinrolabu, 61, from Kent, pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court and was sentenced on November 4, 2025.
The judge, David Miller, said:
“You lied to occupational health, your colleagues, and your employer. The public doesn’t expect doctors to lie for personal gain.”
The NHSCFA Head of Operations, Ben Harrison, said the case showed a “deliberate abuse of trust” and assured that the agency will continue to bring such offenders to justice.
Akinrolabu’s case adds to recent reports of Nigerians facing fraud charges abroad. In September, PUNCH Metro reported that another Nigerian in the UK, Farouk Adekunle Adepoju, was arrested after U.S. authorities accused him of hacking a construction company’s email system and diverting payments.
