A Nigerian doctor, Richard Akinrolabu, has been jailed for three years in the United Kingdom after admitting to defrauding the National Health Service of more than £268,000.
According to a statement released by the NHS Counter Fraud Authority, Akinrolabu was employed as a specialist registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Princess Royal University Hospital. Between 2018 and 2021, he repeatedly claimed he was medically unfit to work night or on-call shifts. However, investigations revealed that during those same periods, he took up night and on-call duties at three other hospitals.
The NHSCFA reported that while on full salary and excused from heavy duties at King’s College Hospital, the doctor secretly worked similar shifts elsewhere. The hospital also had to hire locum staff to cover the duties he said he could not perform.
Suspicion arose in November 2021 when King’s College Hospital received information that Akinrolabu had been working night shifts at Basildon Hospital. A local counter-fraud investigation confirmed he had taken several such shifts. The NHSCFA then conducted its own inquiry, gathered additional evidence and invited him for questioning in 2022, but he offered no comment.
He was subsequently charged with four counts of fraud by false representation. At Woolwich Crown Court, where he had earlier pleaded guilty in September 2025, he was sentenced on November 4, 2025.
In sentencing, Judge David Miller told him: “You lied to occupational health, your colleagues and your employer. The public doesn’t expect doctors to lie for personal gain.”
Ben Harrison, Head of Operations at the NHSCFA, described the case as a deliberate abuse of trust, adding that the stolen funds could have been used for patient care. He reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to prosecuting individuals who exploit the health service.
Akinrolabu’s conviction adds to a growing list of Nigerians prosecuted abroad for fraud-related offences. In September, PUNCH Metro reported that another Nigerian, Farouk Adekunle Adepoju, was arrested in the UK at the request of US authorities after being indicted for wire and computer fraud involving a construction company’s hacked email system.
