Doctor and husband jailed after selling stolen NHS Scotland PPE on Ebay during Covid pandemic

An NHS doctor and her husband have been jailed after selling stolen hospital PPE on Ebay during the Covid pandemic.

Attiya Sheikh, 46, who worked as a locum doctor at Hairmyres Hospital and her husband, Omer Sheikh, 48, pleaded guilty to reset at Paisley Sheriff Court on Friday.

The couple were found to be selling the personal protection equipment on the online auction site between May and October 2020, generating £8,000 in less than five months.

Dr Sheikh claimed a man had given her the boxes of blue medical gloves in a car park, but despite investigations, the man was never found.

The scheme was discovered after the company Fannin UK Ltd, which only supplied items to the NHS, saw its products listed for sale on Ebay.

Police found 121 boxes of plastic gloves, belonging to the NHS, in the attic of the couple’s home in Thornliebank during a search in October 2020.

The pair, who have three children, were sentenced to ten months each.

The judge told the couple she found it difficult to “comprehend” their actions.

Sheriff Sukhwinder Gill said: “This was at a time when the world was in a state of heightened fear and anxiety at the start of the Covid pandemic.

“The NHS was facing an unprecedented crisis. There was an extreme shortage of PPE, not only in this country but globally, and society was trying to come to terms with the pandemic.

“As a doctor, you clearly knew that this PPE was essential for your colleagues’ safety and, by extension, their families. Your dishonest actions deprived your colleagues of this equipment. You decided to sell the PPE that you knew was stolen from the NHS online for financial gain.

“It is hard to imagine a more egregious breach of trust, not only in respect of your colleagues but of society.

“You did this together out of sheer greed.”

‘An absolute disgrace’

Gordon Young, head of NHS Scotland counter fraud services, said the couple had “taken advantage of the NHS at a time where the service was under extreme pressure” for PPE.

“It is a disgrace what they’ve done.

“Particularly, a clinician who works for the NHS was aware, particularly during the pandemic, of the shortage of this equipment that was for their colleagues’ and staff’s safety.

“A clinician working in the hospital would know during the pandemic just the importance of PPE and the pressure the service was under in getting PPE.”

NHS Scotland was contacted by the company that produced the gloves, raising concerns over items being sold on Ebay.

After investigations with the online auction site to identify who the seller was, Dr Sheikh and her husband were uncovered.

Mr Young added: “They had been selling these gloves for some time. She had made over almost £8,000 in sales. We believe she was selling them for between £15 to £20 a time.

“It’s estimated she must have sold something in the region of 400 boxes. We contacted Police Scotland and got a search warrant for their house.

“Accompanied by the police, we searched their house and recovered 120 boxes of gloves in the loft.”

‘Egregious crime’

Faye Cook, Procurator Fiscal for North Strathclyde, said: “This was a particularly egregious crime.

“The public put their trust in medical practitioners. As a hospital doctor, Attiya Sheikh betrayed that trust at a time of acute need when patients and NHS staff relied heavily on the availability of Personal Protective Equipment.

“For her and her husband to benefit financially from this criminal conduct will shock many people.

“But now they have both been brought to account for their crimes and must face the consequences of their actions.

“We will always prosecute financial crime of this nature where there is a sufficiency of evidence and it is in the public interest to do so.”

Both lawyers had urged Sheriff Gill to consider alternatives to custody such as community payback orders, but she said she was satisfied the offence passed the custody threshold.

A General Medical Council (GMC) spokesperson said: “Dr Attiya Sheikh is currently registered with a licence to practise but with interim conditions on her registration pending the conclusion of a GMC investigation.”