Ex-NHS chief executive who admitted fraud walks free from court

A former NHS chief executive has walked free from court after admitting 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 and diversity 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 chief executives.

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 graphic design company.

The couple, of Green Lane, Liverpool, went on trial in January accused of fraud but changed their pleas partway through. The sentencing was adjourned until today.

Mrs Vasco-Knight admitted abusing her position as chief executive at the trust by authorising an £11,072 payment to her husband for the Transform document.

Her husband also pleaded guilty to fraud by submitting a false invoice to the trust for the 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.

Mrs Vasco-Knight, who rose from the ranks of nurse to chief executive during her 30-year NHS career, wept throughout the sentencing hearing.

Recorder Don Tait jailed Mrs Vasco-Knight for 16 months and her husband for 10 months but suspended both sentences for two years.

Mrs Vasco-Knight was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and her husband 150 hours.

They will face Proceeds of Crime Act hearings at a later date.

The court heard Mrs Vasco-Knight was paid £170,000 as chief executive and earned an additional £27,000 a year for her one-day-a-week role as the national lead for equalities and diversity, which had a £200,000 budget.

In 2012, she used the fund to buy a MacBook Pro computer with QuarkXPress graphic design software – later admitting she could not use it.

Mr Vasco-Knight used the computer, particularly the graphic design software, for his own business called Thinking Caps, which he ran from his garden shed at his home in Devon.

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.

Prosecutor Thomas Evans said this invoice was submitted by Mr Naqvi at the request of Mrs Vasco-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,” he said.

“That led to a chain of events culminating in these proceedings.”

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.

Lloyd Morgan, defending Mrs Vasco-Knight, said: “She has risen a long way from humble beginnings, overcome many difficulties, both professionally and personally, to reach dizzying heights – more than she would ever have expected – and this is a fall of very great magnitude.

“She fraudulently and dishonestly went ahead and arranged the payment of this invoice and it is something she bitterly regrets and will regret for the rest of her life.”

Mr Morgan said Mrs Vasco-Knight, who was currently unemployed and signed off sick with mental health problems, had lost her career. Her £640,000 Devon home was also up for sale and facing repossession.

“It is her own fault. It has all gone up in smoke and something to which she will never be able to return,” he said.

“It is difficult to imagine a more dramatic fall from grace than this.”

She was awarded a CBE for her work on equality and diversity in the NHS in the January 2014 Honours List.

Brendan Carville, representing Mr Vasco-Knight, said: “He has had a momentous fall from grace.

“Prisons in this society are full of people who deserve to be there. These two people have been good to society and of exemplary good character and they have made one slip and although it crosses the custody threshold, it does not mean they deserve to go to prison.”

Mr Carville said Mr Vasco-Knight was now working for a company as head of graphic design and was the family’s sole earner.

Passing sentence, the judge told Mrs Vasco-Knight: “One cannot imagine a more serious abuse of trust and responsibility than your part.

“You were on a six-figure salary and you arranged for your husband to benefit from a contract of £11,000, money from an NHS budget we all know is under severe pressure for resources.

“You in particular have fallen a long way from what was expected of you professionally and personally and that is your own fault.”

Sue Frith, managing director of NHS Protect, which conducted the investigation, said afterwards: “Paula and Stephen Vasco-Knight defrauded the NHS of money that is meant for the care of patients and which came from the public purse.

“The vast majority of those working in the NHS are people of the utmost integrity who will feel extremely let down by these crimes.”

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