Civil servant who duped bosses to hold down five jobs at the same time faces jail after being convicted of £280,000 fraud - with siblings now suing him over their dead mum's will

A civil servant who exploited the work-from-home culture to take multiple overlapping government jobs has been found guilty of fraud on his birthday.Shameless Kashim Chowdhury illicitly racked up more than £280,000 of taxpayer cash by lying to potential and current employers about his secret stash of jobs.Once on the payroll, he took advantage of post-Covid remote working arrangements to juggle up to five jobs at one time from his £2million four-storey Grade II-listed home in trendy east London.He took sick days and holidays in an attempt to manage his workload and keep the ruse going, allegedly applying make-up to appear ill on a video call with bosses, although his performance was generally regarded to be poor.Chowdhury, who was often handed senior project manager roles with salaries of up to £52,000, said he was suffering poor mental health and was coping with his terminally ill mother's care. He denied trying to deceive employers, claiming evidence proving his innocence was lost by investigators.But he was convicted of nine counts of fraud by jurors at Southwark Crown Court after prosecutors said he 'positively lied about his employment history and having other full-time jobs'. He looked straight ahead as the unanimous verdicts were returned. And it can now be revealed he is also locked in a bitter legal battle with his siblings over the future of their dead mother's six-bedroom home off Brick Lane.Chowdhury, whose identity was first revealed by the Mail in April last year, will be sentenced at a later date. The maximum sentence for fraud is ten years in prison. The shamed former Whitehall worker, pictured exclusively by the Mail, attempted to hide his face as he made his way into his trial at Southwark Crown Court each day Kashim Chowdhury has been convicted of fraud after taking on multiple simultaneous civil servant jobs The court heard Chowdhury, who turned 56 on Monday, began working for Tower Hamlets Council in February 2020, before taking a second job with Defra in April 2021.This was despite him going through the Government's vetting procedures, designed to ensure rogue agents do not make it into Whitehall.By September 2023, he had taken on nine different full-time jobs with various government departments and public bodies, including the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care.At its height, in May 2023, he was being paid for five full-time roles, unbeknown to bosses.This meant he was contracted to work 183 hours a week – more than the 168 hours which actually exist in seven days.One of these jobs was at the UK Health Security Agency, where his work during his seven-month stint between 2022 and 2023 was described by his project line manager as 'very poor'.Colleague Carol Hedland told jurors: 'I would describe his conduct, attitude, productivity, performance and obviously attendance as being very poor.'She said she tried to raise the matter with Chowdhury over the telephone, but he accused her of 'badgering' him and hung up.Another former colleague, at the Home Office, described how Chowdhury would miss Teams meetings, and was 'incredibly rude' in a catch-up meeting to discuss his dismal performance during his probation period.Richard Arkless said: 'He said all offers of help were just for show, he wasn't interested in the job.'He then went on sick again. He had not improved his conduct, in fact it diminished.'Former colleagues told The Mail Chowdhury lived like a hermit and was not prone to extravagance, while the court heard he had squirrelled away £300,000 during the three-year fraud period.Prosecutor Lucy Organ told the court Chowdhury was 'exploiting decent, honest people who do not think you would have two full-time jobs at the same time'.She said: 'I asked Mr Chowdhury if it was acceptable to have two full-time jobs at the same time for a year.'After giving his normal response about his mental health being poor at the time, his actual response was: it never crossed his mind it was a problem to have two full-time jobs at the same time.'He can't say, "yes I think that's dishonest." He knows you (jurors), as reasonable people will think it's dishonest, he's in a Catch-22 and says: "It didn't cross my mind." And it can be revealed he is also fighting a civil claim from his siblings over their dead mother's £2million home off Brick Lane Chowdhury denied committing fraud and said he was struggling with mental health issues and caring for his terminally ill mother'It very much did cross his mind. He sought to hide it at every time. You only seek to hide it if there's something wrong with what you are doing.'Chowdhury denied dishonesty and said he had failed to disclose some of his overlapping jobs because he was suffering from stress, panic and post-traumatic stress disorder related to a previous job.He told jurors: 'I wasn't checking what I was saying or doing on those (job application) forms. I just wanted to hit the submit button.'He accepted that he had failed to complete employment forms accurately but added: 'I do not believe there was criminal intent.'He said the jobs were 'a distraction' from issues in his personal life, including his mother's deteriorating health.He also claimed that it gave him 'a link to the outside world', despite working almost entirely remotely, and often refusing to turn on his camera for meetings or attend staff away days.And he told jurors he believed criticisms of his performance had been unfair.But he admitted he could never have hoped to fulfil the contracted hours of several simultaneous jobs.'Practically you can never do that. The number of hours, that's impossible,' he said.But he maintained the jobs were based on completing projects and delivering results rather than clocking in and out.The court heard, between January 19 and April 15, 2022, Chowdhury had three overlapping jobs at Tower Hamlets Council, Defra and the East London NHS Foundation Trust.He was contracted to work a combined 110 hours a week across the three positions.'Were you managing to do that?' Ms Organ asked.'On paper that is an impossibility, but in practice different arrangements were made,' Chowdhury replied. 'The work was not time-based. It was mainly outputs-based.'Another UK HSA colleague described how she thought Chowdhury was faking his illness during a video-call while he was on sick leave.Line manager Aleesha Adams told the court: 'He was coughing, blowing his nose, saying he was really ill, he was holding up the tissues for the camera to show how ill he was.'I was surprised to see he was wearing what I thought was white make-up.'She said this then appeared to come off as he sweated.But Chowdhury denied ever having worn make-up and said the illness was genuine.Chowdhury's secret only came to light when an internal audit in 2022-23 discovered he had withheld his employment history when applying for the roles.The National Fraud Initiative (NFI), a Cabinet Office unit, began looking into the matter and then Defra investigators took over the case after it emerged Chowdhury accessed an internal UKHSA meeting using a Defra-issued laptop.The police were called in and he was arrested in July 2023.The court heard Chowdhury kept a blue book containing his various government passwords, log-in details and the names of his multiple line managers as he struggled to maintain his deception.He also claimed that mobile phones and laptops - which the Crown admitted were lost during the police investigation - contained evidence which could have supported his case.'It covered my entire defence in relation to these proceedings. It would have enabled me to challenge the prosecution,' he said.'My entire defence has been wiped out as a result.'I have had to come to these proceedings with just my oral testimony and my memory.'It can now be reported that Chowdhury is simultaneously fighting legal action from his siblings, who accuse him of pressuring his terminally ill mother into transferring partial ownership of her home to him before she died.Older brothers Abdul and Anis Chowdhury, and sister Fowzia Hussain, said a Declaration of Trust, Deed of Gift and Land Registry transfer document were all 'the product of undue influence' by Chowdhury amid concerns he would be left with nothing when their mother Faijun Nessa died in July 2023.Chowdhury said he was his mother's sole carer, and that she made the decision of her own free will after taking legal advice.The dispute was heard at the High Court, with Chowdhury giving evidence part-way through his criminal trial for fraud, which was being held concurrently at Southwark Crown Court, roughly a mile away.The extraordinary situation meant High Court judge Amanda Hardy KC was forced to put reporting restrictions on the civil dispute banning journalists from publishing proceedings until his fraud trial concluded, as all of his siblings lined up to point the finger at Chowdhury and accuse him of dishonesty.Chowdhury told the court his mother, who was illiterate in both English and her native Bengali, initiated the drawing up of the various documents, solicited her own legal advice, and kept him completely out of the loop throughout regarding the details and her intentions.He said he simply wanted a place to live.He also said his mother made her intentions known to her wide circle of friends, yet was not able to explain why none of them nor any solicitors were called to back up his version of events.Barrister Aidan Briggs, for the claimants, said: 'I am going to suggest … your mother was simply doing what you told her to do. You coerced your mother into signing these documents.'Chowdhury replied: 'If there was any coercion my mother would have told lots of people. And there is no evidence she ever said "Kashim was coercing me".'As the sibling row deepened, Chowdhury told the judge: 'She (mother) wanted to make sure I was safeguarded.'Any stress was entirely caused by my siblings in this matter - they descended on this property for one reason, it was greed, and my mother knew that.'My mum was an intelligent woman, she said she experienced things like this and wanted my future safeguarded.'All I said was I wanted a roof over my head, and that my siblings wanted proceeds out of this. I never wanted a single penny.'The court heard devout Muslim Mrs Nessa previously wanted her home divided according to the principles of Sharia law, with male heirs receiving twice that of female counterparts.The judge is expected to deliver her ruling at a later date.