A Manchester woman has was convicted of swindling the NHS out of a million pounds has reportedly walked straight back into her job after being released from prison.
Deborah Hancox, 48, and her partner, John Leigh, were jailed in 2014 for fraud after concocting a scheme in which Hancox, an NHS manager, bought IT products from Leigh at a 30 percent mark-up using public money, funnelling the proceeds into their own pockets.
They regularly boosted the prices of the computers and office supplies that they bought from their own companies by 30 percent, and sometimes raised it to 60 percent of the going market rate. It is thought that they made at least £1 million ($1.4m) via their companies and stole £330,000 ($456,000) off the NHS directly.
The pair were sentenced to over two years in prison and were released last year, only for Hancox to rejoin the NHS under an assumed name, reports the Daily Mirror.
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Calling herself Deborah Moshin, she got a job as an Effective Use of Resources Officer in the health service, whom she had previous swindled. It is thought that she was asked to leave her job, with Greater Manchester Shared Services, last month.
"I am appalled that someone with Hancox's history who served time in prison for stealing from the NHS could get a job at the NHS again through an agency," an NHS insider told the Mirror.
"What she did was disgusting but the fact she managed to get back in is horrifying."
The local MP in her area, Debbie Abrahams added: "This is shocking. I want to know how this was able to happen and have asked for this to be fully investigated."
While Hancox and Leigh were stealing from the NHS, they enjoyed a flash lifestyle including expensive cars and houses in Dubai and Cyprus. The pair had moved to Northern Cyprus, which has no extradition treaty with the UK, when their actions were discovered in 2008.
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They were arrested on a visit to the south of the island and subsequently taken back home to face justice. They were forced to sell their Dubai home in order to finance reparations to the NHS for the money that they stole.
"This is not a victimless crime," said Sergeant Laura Walter of Greater Manchester Police at the time of their arrest.
"It is the NHS they scammed out of out thousands of pounds, money which the NHS badly needs."
Featured Image Credit: Police mugshot