By Democrat reporter

A bogus psychiatrist who treated hundreds of patients in Scotland, including in the old Argyll and Clyde Health Board area, and defrauded the NHS out of £1.3million has failed in appeals against her conviction and sentence.

Zholia Alemi was jailed for seven years at Manchester Crown Court in 2023 after being convicted of 20 fraud offences. She was already serving five years after for forging the will of an elderly vulnerable patient in an attempt to inherit her estate.

She was employed by the NHS after moving to the UK in 1995 and worked at a number of locations, including six Scottish health boards. Some of her patients were sectioned under the Mental Health Act or sent for needless electro-convulsive therapy.

One health board – NHS Ayrshire and Arran – confirmed that Alemi treated 395 adults while working as a locum psychiatrist for 18 months from 2007, with 24 patients detained by her under the Mental Health Act.

Prosecutors said she had earned up to £1.3m during the years she worked as a consultant psychiatrist. The General Medical Council (GMC) had been able to use a loophole for medics from certain Commonwealth countries that has been closed since 2003.

At her second trial, Alemi denied failing any part of her exams in New Zealand and her lawyers pointed to the fact she had managed to practise for 20 years without being discovered as evidence of her proficiency.

However, she was convicted of 13 counts of fraud, three counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a false instrument.

At the Court of Appeal in London, her lawyers argued that no account had been taken of her autism diagnosis, that she had been denied access to prosecution evidence and that her human rights had been infringed.

Her counsel, Francis Fitzgibbon KC, also told the court she contended that the trial judge had incorrectly considered the Carlisle conviction as an aggravating factor when determining her sentence.

But Lord Justice Dingemans, sitting with Mr Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Hilliard, dismissed her appeals in their entirety.

Addressing the court, on the sentencing issue: “The judge was entitled to have regard to the fact that the applicant had used the obtaining of her qualification as a doctor by fraud to take advantage of a vulnerable person towards the end of their life.”

Lord Justice Dingemans also said the trial judge had taken into account her mental health difficulties and age.

Top of page picture is of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board headquarters which absorbed the old Argyll and Clyde Health Board which was not fit for purpose.