Where there's a will there's a way

In October 2018, NHS consultant psychiatrist Dr Zholia Alemi appeared in court in Carlisle, charged with forging the will of an elderly patient under her care with the object of obtaining her estate, valued at £1.5 million. Alemi was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. A local journalist, Phil Coleman, had sat through the trial and something piqued his curiosity; 'would such a massive crime really be a first offence?', he asked himself, and began to do some delving. It wasn’t long before he hit the jackpot – Dr Alemi, who had worked for the NHS for twenty-two years, had never qualified as a doctor at all. She had briefly studied medicine in New Zealand but hadn’t completed her studies, and yet, remarkably, held full registration with the General Medical Council.