Ex-NHS chief weeps in court as she admits fraudulently paying husband thousands
A former NHS chief executive wept in the dock as she admitted fraudulently paying her husband more than £11,000 from her budget.
Paula Vasco-Knight, 53, was in charge of South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, and the national lead for equalities for NHS England at the time.
She paid her husband, Stephen Vasco-Knight, £11,072 to produce a document named Transform, meant to improve leadership qualities in CEOs.
Exeter Crown Court heard the 200-page document was never made and Mrs Vasco-Knight failed to declare any interest in her 46-year-old husband’s company.
The couple, of Runcorn in Cheshire, were standing trial accused of fraud but changed their pleas to guilty during the prosecution case.
Mrs Vasco-Knight (pictured, left), who rose from the ranks of nurse to chief executive during her 30-year NHS career, broke down in tears before entering her guilty plea.
Recorder Don Tait adjourned the case until March 10, when Mr and Mrs Vasco-Knight will be sentenced for the fraud.
Following the case, Sue Frith, managing director of NHS Protect which conducted the investigation, said: “It will be a huge disappointment and shock to many, that Paula Vasco-Knight, who has led on equality in the NHS and whose personal story was an inspiration to so many, has abused her position of trust and committed fraud against the NHS.
“Stephen Vasco-Knight’s offence is no less disappointing. Between them they defrauded over £11,000 of NHS money that is sorely needed.”
Mrs Vasco-Knight admitted abusing her position as CEO at the trust by authorising an £11,072 payment to her husband for a document entitled Transform.
Her husband also pleaded guilty to fraud by submitting a false invoice to the trust for the Transform document in November 2013.
NHS senior manager Habib Naqvi, 39, was found not guilty of two charges of encouraging or assisting Mrs Vasco-Knight after the prosecution offered no evidence against him.
Jurors heard Mrs Vasco-Knight commanded a £200,000 budget for her one-day-a-week role as the national lead for equalities.
In 2012, she used the fund to buy a MacBook Pro computer with QuarkXPress graphic design software – later admitting she could not use it.
Prosecuting, Gareth Evans told the jury that Mr Vasco-Knight used the computer, particularly the graphic design software, for his own business.
In an interview with NHS Protect, Mr Vasco-Knight described his company, Thinking Caps, as a “one-man show run from his garden shed”.
Mrs Vasco-Knight was awarded a £10,000 bursary for leadership development in December 2012.
The following November, her husband submitted an invoice for £11,072 from the bursary funds for producing a document entitled Transform.
Mr Evans said this invoice was submitted by Mr Naqvi at the request of Mrs Pasco-Knight to “camouflage it”.
Weeks later, she began chasing payment for that invoice, and her authorising number was used to approve it.
She then asked the finance department if the money could be paid as a cheque. Her husband later produced his banking details.
“It was those banking details that, in 2014, led to a link being made between Thinking Caps and Paula Vasco-Knight,” Mr Evans said.
“That led to a chain of events culminating in these proceedings.”
Mr Vasco-Knight did not provide a copy of Transform, which he claimed had been completed in 2013, until his interview in March 2015.
Many of the 200 pages were blank, save for the words ‘think it, write it’, and passages of text were “virtually verbatim” from work published in 2014.
“The Transform document is a complete sham,” Mr Evans said.
“No document, proper document, was ever produced yet the two of them were awarded £11,072 for something that had never been done.”
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2017, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Claire Hayhurst / PA Wire.
