Nigerian Doctor Jailed In Uk For Working With Fake Documents

A Nigerian doctor who used a fake identity to work in British hospitals because her English was so bad has been jailed for a year.

Dr Florence Olaye, 61, failed a basic language test but took the exam again under a different name repeatedly until she passed.

Olaye played the system for at least six years using a patchwork of lies and dodgy documents.

Immigration officials have no idea when the mother of four entered the UK - but she owns a £500,000 home and has privately educated her children. 

She was able to get a post as a Senior House Officer in a hospital in the North-West of England in 2008 and has held other prestigious medical positions cross the country.


Fake: Olaye claimed she had illegally given Trust bosses her maiden name on documents because her married name was 'cursed'
 

Olaye spun a tissue of lies in court and claimed she innocently reverted to her maiden name Gberevbie because her married name had been 'cursed' following her divorce in 1999.

Helen Guest, prosecuting, said: 'A false Nigerian passport, a Home Office document and a no time limit stamp were used to prove that she had a right to live and work in the UK for the purpose of securing the position of doctor in the NHS.'

She has worked in the NHS since registering with the GMC in 2005.

Suspicions were first raised when Olaye applied for a job with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLAM) in Camberwell later in 2008.

Olaye had given the trust a false passport in the name Florence Gberevbie, with a 1958 date of birth backed up with the Home Office letter.

A subsequent NHS counter-fraud investigation revealed she had earlier supplied the same bogus passport to join an employment agency in October 2007.

This led to a five-month spell working in general adult psychiatry at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust between March 11 and August 5 2008, a contract worth around £30,000 to the fraudster.
 
Jurors heard Olaye qualified as a doctor in Moscow and had four children with her first husband, who she divorced in 1999.

Her desperation to become a British doctor was clear in her seven failed bids to pass English language exams designed to make sure she could communicate properly with patients.

She took the tests using both her identities and was eventually allowed to practice as Gberevbie.

But in the meantime she had wed two Portuguese men half her age -
She married the second, Jose Tavares, in June 2004, within weeks of divorcing her first husband, Rui Carlos De Melo.

The doctor used the Olaye identity for the De Melo wedding and Gberevbie for Tavares, when she stated on the certificate she was a nurse and spinster living in Belfast.

Her exact immigration status and how she entered the country is still under investigation by the UK Border Agency.
Suspicions were first aroused about Olaye when she tried for a job at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust by using a false passport

Suspicions were first aroused about Olaye when she tried for a job at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust by using a false passport

But the court heard she had been refused a residence permit in the name of Gberevbie in 2005.

She went on to secure a suspect 'no time limit' endorsement on her Olaye passport as well.

The prosecutor said: 'We know this defendant went back and obtained the permit from the marriage which had already been dissolved.'

But this was not as much use to her career as her more successful Gberevbie identity, which is why she then circulated the passport in that name.

Olaye, who divorced her third husband in May last year, has been unable to work as a doctor since her arrest in February 2009.

But she has instead been claiming £132-a-week pension credit.

Miss Guest added: 'This shows what the ramifications of her actions can be.

'I am sure that will be looked at subsequently.'

Srikantharajah Nereshraaj, defending, said Olaye's record was otherwise 'exemplary'.

She had worked hard to make medicine her profession, describing it as 'her life'.

Mr Nereshraaj said: 'She has worked in a number of countries under difficult circumstances.

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