Liverpool man jailed over £250k bogus dive treatments

Feb 5 2009 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

A LIVERPOOL man has been sent to prison for his part in swindling £250,000 from the NHS for treating bogus cases of the bends.

Michael Brass, 45, and David Welsh, 51, from Plymstock, Devon, paid strangers to pose as divers needing decompression treatment.

Brass was yesterday sentenced at Plymouth Crown Court to two years and three months in his absence and Welsh to five years and three months.

Their imprisonment concludes an investigation by the NHS Counter Fraud Service and Devon and Cornwall Police.

Accomplice Anthony Robert Walker, 55, from Marldon, Paignton, received a two-year suspended sentence.

Former boss of the Fort Bovis and Hyperbaric Diver Centre Welsh colluded with diving instructor Brass and Walker to charge the NHS for very expensive emergency decompression treatments that never took place.

Welsh and Brass raided the records of innocent diving students who had attended courses at the centre, and NHS patients who had no connection with it. They used the names, addresses, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of people who had never suffered from the bends or been treated in the company’s hyperbaric chamber.

The case centred on bogus invoices submitted to 12 health bodies relating to 37 “patients” supposedly treated between 1998 and 2002.

Although most victims of the identity theft had done the Fort Bovis diving course, eight of the “patients” told police they had never been diving – and one man said he could not even swim.

Managing director of the NHS counter fraud service Dermid McCausland, said: “For more than four years, these men systematically and shamelessly diverted funds intended for patients requiring emergency decompression treatment, to enrich themselves.

The taxpayer picked up the bill of £6,500 for every treatment these men fraudulently claimed to have given. We are now working with the police to pursue compensation orders to get back every penny for the NHS.”

Devon and Cornwall Constabulary said: “This acts as a warning to those who believe taxpayers’ money is an easy target. You will be caught. You will be prosecuted.”

lizawilliams