A man who stole more than £69,000 from the GP surgery he managed has been jailed for three years.

Nabeel Asghar, aged 43, of Brands Hill, High Wycombe, was a practice manager at Hughenden Valley Surgery, Valley Road, when he began making unauthorised payments from his employer's account in May 2022.

Asghar had full access to the surgery’s bank accounts on the Barclays online portal, had his own PIN for access, along with his own card and card reader.

Asghar was responsible for making his own salary payments using the practice bank account.

Aylesbury Crown Court heard Asghar had stolen £69,342.02 in total by the time he was suspended in March 2023.

Between May 2022 and February 1, 2023, Asghar made five unauthorised salary payments to himself, totalling £25,159.35, which were in addition to his salary.

He also set up a bank account in the name of NS Medical.

Using this account between March 25, 2022 and March 24, 2023, he paid the Locum Superintendent Pharmacist at the surgery her legitimate invoices, whilst forging new invoices under the pharmacist’s name and charging Hughenden Valley Surgery inflated fees.

Asghar kept the difference in the value of the invoices for his own benefit. This was done on 14 occasions to the total of £44,182.67.

Asghar’s contract at Hughenden Valley Surgery was terminated in March 2023 on grounds of gross misconduct.

Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Duncan Wynn of the Central Fraud Unit, said: “Nabeel Asghar abused the trust placed in him by his employers to systematically defraud the NHS of a substantial amount of money purely for his personal gain.

“His offences were sophisticated and pre meditated in nature involving the setting up of other bank accounts to facilitate the fraudulent activity, which was carried out over a sustained period of time.

“Wrongly, fraud is often seen as a victimless crime. In this case precious public funds were stolen and this effects everyone.

“This conviction and subsequent sentence shows how seriously these offences are taken by the courts and sends a clear message that Thames Valley Police will relentlessly pursue fraud suspects and bring them to justice.” 

Asghar was arrested on July 11 last year and charged with the offences on November 23.

He was jailed at Aylesbury Crown Court on March 28 after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation at a previous hearing on January 22.