A civil servant accused of fraudulently earning more than £284,000 by holding multiple public-sector jobs at once admitted to making mistakes but told a jury he did not believe there was criminal intent. Kashim Chowdhury, giving evidence at Southwark Crown Court, said his errors stemmed from being "overwhelmed and stressed" and that the thought of losing his livelihood filled him with "terror and panic." He told the jury he had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2015, which was triggered in 2021.

The 55-year-old from east London is on trial facing nine counts of fraud. He denies acting dishonestly or intending to make a dishonest gain.

The prosecution alleges Chowdhury failed to disclose to his employers that he held other full-time jobs. Chowdhury, however, told the jury that some of his managers knew about his other employment. He said staff and managers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, East London NHS Trust, and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) were all aware he had other jobs.

At the height of the alleged deceit, Chowdhury held five full-time jobs on full-time salaries within the public sector. In the spring of 2023, he was employed by Defra, the UK Health Security Agency, the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Home Office. The jury was told that during this period he was contracted to work 183 hours a week - more hours than exist in a seven-day week.

Each job paid a full-time wage, and Chowdhury was paid £11,000 for a single month's work in 2023. The prosecution alleges he kept his overlapping jobs secret by working entirely remotely, telling employers he was the sole carer for his elderly mother - an opportunity they say he "exploited."

A succession of Chowdhury's line managers testified that he performed poorly. Abigail Mounde, his former line manager at the Department for Business and Trade, told the court: "Any basic tasks I asked him to do he either did late or not to the standard I would have expected." When asked if he accepted the criticism of his performance, including failing to deliver work on time, Chowdhury replied: "I reject them all."

The prosecution also alleges Chowdhury used sick notes from his doctor as part of the cover-up. But they said that while he told some employers he was sick and unfit to work due to "mixed anxiety and depressive disorder," he was not giving sick notes to other employers - which, they argued, "underlines the dishonesty involved in the whole affair."

His line manager at the Health Security Agency, Aleesha Adams, arranged a video call in May 2023 to support his return to work after a period of absence. In previous evidence, she told the court she was surprised when he logged on wearing white make-up because his name had led her to expect an Asian man with darker skin. She said that as the call went on, the make-up started coming off his forehead: "He was sweating, it was like rubbing off so it was darker underneath and darker on the neck."

Prosecuting barrister Lucy Organ told the court: "This almost laughable incident demonstrates quite how far the defendant was willing to go in his deceit."