Episode 14 Saints and Scroungers

We live in a country where the money we pay as taxes

goes to provide essential services that we rely upon every day.

It's also there to give us a safety net,

in case life takes an unexpected turn.

This vital money supports people in their time of need.

Poor chap, you could tell he was anxious because he was agitated.

But there will always be some people, who see that money

as something they deserve - even when they don't.

This revealed that she'd fraudulently claimed benefit

in the region of £75,000.

Welcome to the world of Saints and Scroungers.

Saints and Scroungers celebrates lives changed by benefits

and casts a spotlight on the cheats and criminals

who are out to beat the system.

Every day, right across the UK, investigators are chasing

self-serving fraudsters, who steal from the public purse.

And the saints are fighting to ensure people get the help

that they're entitled to.

Coming up on today's show...

The fraudulent financier cooking the books!

This is a very well organised individual,

who was hellbent on stealing money from the Trust as much as he could.

And the fitness fanatic floored by a life-changing injury.

I had to crawl up my garden path, it was so painful.

The NHS. One of our great publicly-funded institutions -

always there in time of need - to help the sick and infirm.

But while its doctors and nurses work tirelessly

to help other people, there are some who are just intent

on helping themselves.

Meet 23-year-old Lance Sewell.

In 2009, he had a steady and respectable job, working as

a financial analyst at Guys & St Thomas's Hospital in London,

with the added convenience of living cheaply at his mum's

in Catford, South West London.

Investigators didn't realise it at the time

but this seemingly hard-working young man was about to make

an appearance on their radar.

In January 2009, four doctors working at the hospital

complained that their wages hadn't been paid into their accounts.

The case was passed on to NHS Protect,

the NHS's very own team of fraud investigators.

Mark Howard led the team, as they started to get their heads

around the evidence.

The doctors noticed after a few days

that obviously they hadn't been paid by the hospital.

As a result, the doctors made contact with the Payroll Department,

asking where their salary was, which they found out

by the Payroll Section that they had changed

their bank account details the previous month.

I can imagine they were a little surprised that their pay

had gone to a bank account that they knew nothing about.

To change bank account details to receive your salary,

you'd have to complete a form.

When the Payroll Department informed them

that they had completed a change of bank details request,

the doctors' response was to the negative.

It was at that point the Payroll Section realised

that a fraud had been committed.

Somebody somewhere had all that money

heading to these bank accounts.

The total salary for the four doctors was £16,400.

That was their net pay. And that's what was paid

into the fraudsters' bank account.

Of course, the doctors had to be paid their wages.

But Payroll wasn't happy that they'd had to pay them out twice.

Little did the hospital know this first successful attempt

to steal NHS money was just the tip of the iceberg.

Over the coming months, the Payments Section began to query

some of invoices that up to now

they'd been quite happily paying out.

When the fraud first started, they were for a lot lower amounts,

maybe £2,000 to £3,000 per invoice.

As the fraud developed, clearly they got more confident

and invoice amounts started to go up.

Most of the invoices were around about £10,000 per invoice.

And the number of dodgy invoices was increasing too

including suspect expenses claims

for when doctors were supposedly away on work-related trips.

A number of the invoices related to reimbursement of conference fees for doctors.

These doctors weren't even known to the hospital

and the conference fees were totally bogus.

After much digging, a pattern started to emerge.

As the investigation progressed, we discovered more and more invoices

related to consultancy services

that had allegedly been provided to the Trust.

These related to things like web development,

general consultancy services for expert opinions

on various health-related issues.

With radars pinging, the hospital was now on full alert

to the fact that something was definitely up.

They were beginning to see dodgy invoices from companies

that, on closer inspection, were actually unknown to the hospital

or worse, from companies that didn't exist in the first place.

Other invoices had what looked like fake signatures on them.

On top of that, there were even some that had

the genuine signatory's handwriting photocopied on to the paper!

In July 2009, the Creditor Payments Section of the Trust

identified two invoices that had been submitted and these invoices

were for reimbursement of conference fees for two doctors.

They had noticed that the authorising signature

on the invoice did not look genuine.

As a result, they then made inquiries with the relevant budget holder

and they discovered that the signature had indeed been falsified.

They passed those invoices to the Trust Audit Department.

They discovered that the same bank account had been used

in the payroll fraud that took place in January 2009.

Bingo! What we have here are matching bank details

on fake invoices that link up with the mysterious accounts

into which the doctors' wages disappeared several months before.

It's the first important clue that could point

to whoever was trying to steal taxpayers' money

that was meant to help others.

Meanwhile, the invoices kept on coming, and as staff were sifting

through them to work out which were genuine and which were bogus,

they were beginning to fear the worst. Could this be an inside job?

The fraud investigator, who got to grips with the evidence,

was beginning to think so.

Due to the nature of his job, he's asked to stay anonymous.

This is a very well-organised individual, who was hellbent

on stealing money from the Trust as much as he could.

Somebody on the inside, who had access to those budget stamps,

who had access to those authorising signatures,

and who had access to systems and processes,

whereby invoices could be submitted into the system.

Dodgy bank details, falsified signatures!

At this point, the investigators still didn't know what part -

if any - Sewell had to do with it all.

But one thing was for sure, drastic action was needed

to slam the brakes on this fraud.

When it became clear in July 2009 that the Trust was being attacked

by an invoice fraud, the Trust changed the way they were doing different procedures.

They stopped accepting copies of invoices

and started to ask for the genuine signature.

A large number were submitted, totalling £92,000.

Through the diligence of the Trust, none of these got paid.

So, the team attempted to gain the upper hand in the situation.

Stricter rules ensured that they stopped accidentally paying out for fake invoices.

But what they really needed was a big break.

At which point, who should walk through the door

asking questions about unpaid invoices, but Lance Sewell!

Lance Sewell started off at the Trust as a payroll officer.

He would be involved in the administration of payroll claims,

setting new people up on the payroll system,

administering any changes of bank accounts

that staff got their salaries paid into.

In March 2009, Lance Sewell moved from the Payroll Department

to the Finance Department, and became a financial analyst.

It basically means he's looking at financial management

and he was assigned to a particular department to oversee,

which was the Research and Development

of the Guys and St Thomas's Hospital.

And when Sewell came asking questions about fraudulent payments,

well, it was time to check out exactly what he was up to.

Lance Sewell chased up a number of those invoices.

He told the Finance Department

that someone else was chasing him up for payment.

When we looked into that, that didn't quite ring true.

Chasing invoices of the kinds that he was chasing

was not really a major part of his role, and it seemed odd

to the Finance Department as to why he was pursuing those invoices.

At that point, they were known as false invoices as well.

That really started to point the finger

at Lance Sewell as a main suspect.

The spotlight may have been on Sewell, but at this point

the hospital didn't have any proof.

The audit team would need help if they were going to get

to the bottom of all these bogus invoices.

And within the NHS, that means NHS Protect.

One of the functions of NHS Protect is to get involved

in more complex fraud investigations.

We're a specialist investigation team,

who can access financial bank accounts.

And we also have the capacity to forensically analyse

computers and phones.

The Trust contacted NHS Protect when it became clear

that the payroll element of the fraud and the invoice frauds were linked.

We then started the process of trying to establish links

between the defendants, who'd actually perpetrated this fraud.

And, at this time, Sewell was the only real suspect.

The fact the money from the fake invoices was disappearing

into other people's bank accounts, all indicated

that Sewell was getting help.

It seemed the accounts held the key to finding out

just who was involved.

In order to prove a conspiracy, you would need to tie the bank accounts

that were being used within this fraud to the individual

whom suspicion had fallen upon as the architect of the fraud.

But if Sewell was the mastermind with grand designs on hospital cash,

just who else was in his gang?

It then became a case of trying to piece together who was responsible.

There was a lot of circumstantial evidence before the arrests.

For now, it's farewell to the fraudsters

and hello to the people we call our saints.

Those in society who help others in genuine need but are too proud -

or don't know how - to claim what is rightfully theirs.

For some people, it's only when they hit rock bottom

that they can find the strength to turn their lives around.

But, at that point, in your darkest hour, who do you turn to for help?

And how do you summon the strength to turn a life-changing event

into a springboard for something better?

Meet 55-year-old David Buck, who lives in South Yorkshire.

From keeping fit in the Army to mastering several martial arts,

physical activity has always been an integral part of his life.

When I was 18, I got into martial arts

and judo and jujitsu, then I settled on doing karate.

Eventually got up to my black belt. I set my own schools up in Bolsover.

I got addicted to the fitness and I had a passion for teaching.

And that's when that discovery - a passion for being an instructor -

first came about.

For 15 years or so, David was a popular fitness instructor,

running daily keep fit classes in his local area.

But, one day, for reasons completely out of his control,

it all came to an abrupt halt.

I've come to meet David and hear his story.

So, tell me about the day when all of that, you realised, had to stop.

I'd gone home and just leant over the boot.

When I came back out, I had this massive pain in my right knee

and I couldn't bend my knee. It was locked straight.

So, what I did - I thumped the back of my leg with my hand.

Then it was just like somebody'd cut my leg off. I couldn't walk.

I crawled up the garden path, got myself into the house and managed to sit down.

I went to have an X-ray and when they went in,

they found there was nothing left. There was no cartilage or nothing.

It had all gone. It had just shattered and broke.

It jammed my knee up.

The consultant said you're far too young to have a new knee,

but your working life as a fitness instructor,

and basically what you can do in an active life, is over.

All of the exercising had taken its toll.

David's knees were now no longer fit for purpose.

The future was very uncertain.

It was disastrous for him, and for any instructor, to be honest.

Because when you go into that sort of fitness for your career

that is the main thing for you and for you not to be able

to do that any more, it was just completely life-changing.

You get depressed, you know.

And also you feel like you're letting your clients down.

Those around David were right to be concerned.

This was the second time that David had suffered from depression.

The first time he had depression was almost 17 years ago,

when David's life hit a low point.

I'd become bankrupt and everything.

So, I was banging weight on doing nothing,

so I went through a depression for two years.

Last time when he had this depression,

he had to deal with that with medication.

The only way around that was doing keep fit.

So, with that gone now, he knew there wasn't going to be

any exercise to help him to pick up from this

and we were really worried.

I couldn't really envision what else I could want to do.

I couldn't see a future - a way forward.

David took himself to his local job centre

to seek some much needed advice.

David was now very keen to try to come up with a realistic idea

that would fit in with his health and his overall situation.

And I was able to help David look at specifically what individual help

and support in terms of funding may be available for him.

Knowing that there was some help out there made all the difference

and it wasn't long before David had his eureka moment.

I'd been flying microlights for a number years

from when I was in the Territorial Army.

-I thought, "Why don't I become an instructor?"

-We have lift off!

But if he was going to become a self-employed flying instructor

he would need a business plan, loads of training and bags of funding.

The key issue initially was making sure he did have

the financial support to actually become qualified as an instructor.

This advice led David to a number of local organisations,

one of which was Disability Dynamics,

who offer a range of programmes designed to help people

with disabilities who are keen to get back to work.

I'm one of the business advisors on the work for yourself programme.

The programme is for people with a long term health condition

or disability, who are interested in self employment.

We just facilitate the journey to get from A to B

but I think it's just having somebody there that believes

in what they're doing, and is there to help

that makes all the difference.

And by so process, there was £400 that came from one place, £300 from

another place, and by the time we'd done,

I was only a shortfall of £700.

Borrowed that money off my parents,

and I got the money for the course.

But this was only the beginning.

There was still a lot of studying involved.

I had a massive hill to climb.

First of all I had to do the course,

which was an intensive course, and then went and did the exam.

Thought I had failed it.

He says, "No, not only have you not failed,

"you have passed with distinctions."

Having passed with flying colours,

David needed a location for his business.

Sheffield Aerodrome, where he first got a taste of flying

all those years ago, came to the rescue.

They moved some aircraft around and got me in.

They said, "Right, this room down here,

"because you are setting up your business,

"we only want to charge you £30 a week for this room."

So now after two years of hard graft,

David and his flying school are in business.

I really want to get a taste of what he's so passionate about.

After all it's given him, maybe I'll catch the bug.

Bring the right wing down. See it banking?

-Hold it there. Now centre the bar.

-Oh, I've overdone it!

Hold it there. Hold it there. Hold it. Hold it. It will roll in.

It's very gradual, isn't it?

-That's right, yeah.

-Very small movements required.

Oh, traffic on the roads down there and everything.

It's very realistic.

-Oh, I've done that too much.

-Let go of the bar, let me have it.

Oh, dear! That was disastrous.

Here we are, this is your reality now.

This is where we are after those dark days.

You've got your microlight simulator,

you've got aircraft in the hangar, you've got customers,

you know, lining up. That must feel great?

It's what I dream about. So you're sitting in what I saw two years ago.

So, you're sitting in my dream now.

Well, thank you so much for introducing me to something

I knew absolutely nothing about before today.

-It's been fantastic, thank you.

-Well, thanks a lot. Cheers.

David's story shows that with the right level of determination

and drive, there's nothing you can't achieve.

Sometimes all is takes is to know when and where to ask for help.

And then, the sky's the limit.

In 2009, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital

was under attack from bogus invoices, fraudulent expenses,

and all the while money was drip feeding into unknown bank account.

Investigators set sights on their prime suspect - Lance Sewell,

a hospital insider. A big question loomed large - was he working alone?

We knew what bank accounts were being used in the fraud.

We could then find out who was the bank account holder,

and try and establish links between the bank accounts

and anyone at the hospital.

The bank accounts came back to Kyrone Collins,

Francis Backer-Ocran, Gerry Anyiam, Mourad Jarraz

and Aaron Taipow-Sewell.

Aaron Taipow-Sewell was Lance Sewell's cousin, yes.

Hold it right there!

Aaron Taipow-Sewell was Lance's cousin?

Talk about keeping it in the family.

The investigators started looking into the cash flow of these

new names and surprise, surprise, they all led back to Sewell.

There was money flowing from the bank accounts, Gerry Anyiam.

There was money going from him to Kyrone Collins,

and then onto Lance Sewell.

So the picture was getting clearer.

Investigators could see that money was flowing

out of the hospital, into the bank accounts of Sewell's associates,

and eventually finding in to one of Sewell's own accounts.

During the pre-arrest phase, we done a number of checks

on the suspect bank account holders.

We looked at social networking sites,

looked through Experian and Equifax,

and tried to link up those bank account holders

to anyone at the Trust.

It was quickly established that Lance Sewell was in fact

Facebook friends with a number of the bank account holders.

The investigators' hard work was paying off, as they established

link after link between Sewell and his conspirators.

Impressed by the mounting body of evidence, the police got

involved and organised a search and arrest warrant.

But before the law started knocking on doors,

the investigators had to track down where Sewell actually lived.

And even that required some hard work.

Sewell was registered at the payroll records

as living at his mother's in Catford, South East London.

We discovered it was highly unlikely that he was living there.

Where he was actually living was a flat in the Docklands

area of London, overlooking the Millennium Dome.

That apartment was far in excess of what we would

expect him to be able to afford.

One might say it was quite an aspirational area to live in.

And it was also noted that he was driving an Audi TT vehicle,

which was parked in the underground car park of the building.

The lifestyle that he was seen to be leading was

certainly beyond the income that he was earning within the NHS,

so the only way one could have that

sort of lifestyle would be if one was living

on borrowed credit cards, etc, or had a rich uncle, or something,

that was funding that lifestyle.

On the 24th February, 2010, the police conducted a search...

..and arrested Lance Sewell at his home address in his Docklands flat.

And as soon as they started to look around they hit jackpot!

Sewell was about to be tripped up by his own methodical nature.

False hard copy invoices, Blackberry phones that,

after they were forensically analysed,

detailed numerous conversations and text messages

between Lance Sewell and the other people involved in the fraud.

Computers taken that, once they were forensically analysed,

we discovered templates of invoices.

Sewell was quite a methodical individual.

Methodical to the extent that the items associated with

the fraud that he was perpetrating, he kept in a bag in his flat.

It was almost like he had a fraud kit that he was working with

including this stamp, to stamp invoices that come in.

Some invoices that he had taken from his department,

which he had removed authorising signatures from.

And then, he also had his own invoices,

that he was mocking up,

you can see that he has put his own notes on here about

increasing the font size and putting a company logo here.

He'd made copies of some signatures of the authorising

members of staff, he was then able to put his own invoices together,

such as this, where the stamp was used here,

and the authorising signature was put there.

Also with in the fraud kit were a number of notebooks which

also outline the methodical nature of this fraud.

In this book, he's helpfully put on page one,

"hit list," and here he's detailing how many invoices

he is going to be putting in, how much those invoices are for,

and how much he's going to obtain from this fraud.

He's got some initials here, AT, KY, GA,

we believe these were associated with other members of the gang.

He's got some of the names of the false companies that he invented.

As a good financial analyst, he's written "January forecast."

This is a very organised young man,

who was very methodical in the nature

that he had planned and prepared to steal money from the NHS.

Clearly Sewell was extremely thorough,

as a trawl through his phone confirmed.

On his Blackberry, and also on the mobile phones

of his co-conspirators, were a number of messages that

in the nature of when invoices were being paid,

when to expect money in various bank accounts,

and also which bank accounts were to be used.

There were a number of text messages

in relation to a trip to Amsterdam. There was also a trip to Miami.

One of those text messages detailed the flight details for all of them.

It listed who was on the flight, and how much they'd paid for that trip.

Fast cars, expensive apartments! Now add foreign holidays to the list!

You don't have to look very hard to see what was happening to

the money that Sewell had taken.

When it came to the interrogation,

no-one was giving anything away.

Sewell remained tight-lipped, and his cousin claimed he thought

the money in the account was his student loan! Come on!

It was difficult for him to explain the wealth of evidence that

had been generated. But consistently during the interview,

he denied any involvement in any fraud against the hospital.

There was no escape from the law.

Sewell and his gang pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiracy

to defraud, and money laundering offences.

When they were all sentenced, Lance Sewell

received 21 months' imprisonment.

His associates and other conspirators

all received suspended sentences and variant community service orders.

We never found out from himself why he was doing this.

When we looked through the notebooks,

we did find a couple of jottings about a company called

Sewell Financial Consulting.

It would appear that Lance was intending perhaps to set himself up

in business as a financial advisor.

In one light, you could see that once he realised

he was able to steal money in this way,

that perhaps he got a bit too cocky,

and rather than putting all of his

ill-gotten gains into founding

his new business, he decided to

spend a little on himself at the same time.

The financial fiddler got sent down.

The only question that remains is just how much did

Sewell's fraudulent schemes cost you, me, and NHS?

The total loss to the hospital

was in the region of £60,000. There was also £92,000 worth

of invoices that had been submitted fraudulently,

that had been prevented from being paid.

We are very happy with the sentencing outcome.

It reflected and gave a strong message out to deter people

in carrying out this sort of fraud.

So our man was caught with his hand well

and truly in the cookie jar!

If only he'd stayed on the straight and narrow.

As it is, he's only bought himself a bit of time to think about it all.