Civil servant accused of juggling five government jobs says work was his ‘distraction' from caring for ailing mother

A civil servant accused of fraudulently juggling five government jobs has said that work was his “distraction” from caring for his mother.

Kashim Chowdhury, 55, allegedly lied about his employment status to get a string of overlapping full-time roles across government departments and public bodies.

Between February 2020 and September 2023, Chowdhury, from Whitechapel, east London, earned almost £350,000 from eight employers, Southwark Crown Court has heard.

This includes more than £280,000 in gross pay from employers for months when he had more than one full-time job, jurors were told.

Prosecutors say Chowdhury “exploited” the work-from-home culture which began during the Covid-19 pandemic to hide his multiple jobs and took sick leave from some employers to manage the workload.

On Wednesday, Chowdhury told the court that around May and June 2022, his mother’s health “deteriorated”.

He said: “That overwhelmed me at the time.”

Defence barrister Pieter Briegel asked: “In a nutshell, what impact did her declining health have on you?”

The defendant replied: “The only word that comes to my head is it just destroyed me.”

Mr Briegel later asked: “To what extent was the stress in your life due to the number of jobs?”

Chowdhury replied: “The jobs at the time were my lifeline at the time, that was what I survived on at that particular moment.

“And they gave me a link to the outside, they were the only thing I had to the outside world and were a distraction from what was going on in my personal life, looking after my mum at that time.”

The court previously heard that Chowdhury was signed off work by a doctor for some jobs due to “mixed anxiety and a depressive disorder”.

Asked about this, Chowdhury said: “I never wanted to go on sick leave… I just wanted to carry on working.”

He added: “It was my coping mechanism at that time.”

The defendant denies nine counts of fraud.

During the trial opening last week, the court heard that he began working for Tower Hamlets Council in February 2020, before taking a second job with Defra in April 2021.

The two roles overlapped for more than a year, the court heard.

For four months in 2022, he also held a third position with East London NHS Trust.

After leaving the council, prosecutors say Chowdhury continued working for Defra while gaining further jobs with the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Department for Business and Trade, the Food Standards Agency and the Home Office.

In May 2023, he was allegedly being paid for five full-time jobs.

At one point, he was contracted to work 183 hours a week – more hours than actually exist in seven days, the court heard.

Prosecutor Lucy Organ told jurors that Chowdhury made false representations about his existing employment when applying for the roles.

“Clearly, he would not have been employed by his employers if they had known he had multiple other full-time jobs,” she said.

The court heard that Chowdhury had told employers he had to work from home to care for his “unwell” mother.

But Ms Organ said his workload eventually became “too much to cope with” and his performance suffered.

He then allegedly took sick leave from some jobs while continuing to work in his other positions.