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A woman posed as a doctor despite having no medical training and treated 91 patients before she was rumbled, a court heard.
Oluwadamilola Opemuyi duped agencies into finding her positions after she assumed the identity of a fully qualified doctor and provided false documents.
The “delusional” 39-year-old fraudster - whose father is a gynaecologist and mother is a paediatrician - was able to obtain a position at Elmley and Swaleside prisons in Sheppey, as well as one in Essex and two in Liverpool.
Now Opemuyi, of Bridgeside Mews, Maidstone, is behind bars herself after being jailed for two years and four months for four offences of fraud, two of possessing false identity documents and three of forgery.
She was caught out when she presented two prescriptions she had forged at Boots chemist in Maidstone town centre.
When arrested, she declared: “I am a doctor and I wrote them myself.”
Opemuyi entered guilty pleas moments before she was due to stand trial today.
Judge Jeremy Carey told Opemuyi: "Over a period of just under a month, and by great determination and considerable skill, you managed to get yourself to the position to persuade others you were qualified to be a GP.
“You obtained employment in a specialist profession in which the public place the highest trust when you are without training or experience.
“It is said that although serious errors were made by you, and it had potentially grave consequences, an investigation has resulted in there being an outcome which doesn’t have long-term adverse implications from a physical point of view.
"You were intense in your determination to get to where you eventually arrived... You made references to requiring unrealistic remuneration for your services but this was all part of the fantasy you were spinning for yourself as a physician..." - Judge Jeremy Carey
“But I have seen a statement which bears out your criminal activities had a significant impact on the confidence in medical advisors.”
The judge said despite Opemuyi’s mental health difficulties he was not being invited to make a hospital order and he must, therefore, follow sentencing guidelines.
“You were intense in your determination to get to where you eventually arrived,” he said. “This is not a case where your principal aim was financial gain.
“You made references to requiring unrealistic remuneration for your services but this was all part of the fantasy you were spinning for yourself as a physician.
“There are aspects which are rightly characterised as bizarre. There is mitigation in one respect only, namely your mental health.”
Judge Carey said Opemuyi’s psychotic condition was an important consideration in passing sentence.
Opemuyi will serve half the sentence in prison before being released on licence. She has spent six months in custody - the equivalent of a 12-month sentence.
“Your release is not so far away that you have lost all hope or expectation of release,” said the judge.
He added that it was expected Opemuyi would continue to receive treatment in prison.
Maidstone Crown Court heard Opemuyi had a degree from the University of West London in music, technology and public relations, but none for medicine.
She stole the identity of Oluwadamilola Adeyo, who is a year older. She studied at Manchester University and is fully qualified as a GP and has worked as a locum.
Prosecutor Ryan Richter said Opemuyi set out on her criminal course after she tried to register with the General Medical Council in December last year saying she was thinking of doing a master’s degree in mental health.
She was told that qualification would not be sufficient and she would have to complete five years at medical school and obtain degrees in medicine and surgery.
Opemuyi then set about falsifying documents and applied for jobs with GP surgeries and medical work placement agencies.
“She was to use Dr Adeyo’s GMC registration number, utilising the similarity in their names as part of her deception of a number of agencies,” said Mr Richter.
By January this year she managed to dupe one agency, Meddoc Locums, into believing she was a qualified doctor.
“Miss Opemuyi conducted a brazen, sustained and intelligent campaign of forgery and fraud in order to obtain employment in a specialist profession in which the public place the highest degree of trust, when she was without appropriate training or experience,” said Mr Richter.
When she applied for a position at a surgery in Southend she told the practice manager he parents were both doctors and her mother had advised her that to be a good GP she just needed a copy of the BNF - a book which listed all UK licensed drugs and provided quantities to be prescribed to adults and children.
"These were very serious offences committed by a woman who went to great lengths to gain employment as a doctor despite not having the necessary qualifications to do so..." - Insp Ivan Beasley
When asked where she saw herself in five years time, she replied she might retrain as a brain surgeon. She was not offered a job.
Opemuyi used a false GMC registration certificate, driving licence, passport and marriage certificate.
She claimed to one agency she had been offered a job paying £450,000 a year. To another she asked to be paid £2,000 an hour.
Believing Opemuyi was a genuine doctor Meddoc Locums agency found her a position at Elmley Prison. She negotiated a fee of £500 a day.
GP services at both Elmley and Swaleside are provided by Minster Medical Group.
When told a new GP would be starting work executive manager Helen Gaylor was pleased because it had been difficult to recruit doctors to work in prisons.
But she then received several complaints about Opemuyi after she increased an inmates opiate-based drug outside prison protocols.
Despite her contract being terminated she turned up at the healthcare wing. She was told to leave.
The agency decided to give her another chance and offered her a day’s work at a GP’s surgery in Essex. She saw 21 patients and issued a death certificate at a care home.
She then worked at a health centre in Liverpool, where she saw 25 patients, and another surgery in the city where she saw another 25 people, two of them on home visits.
Following complaints, the agency decided not to give Opemuyi any further work.
Mr Richter said the total amount defrauded was £8,916.
After sentencing, Inspector Ivan Beasley said: "These were very serious offences committed by a woman who went to great lengths to gain employment as a doctor despite not having the necessary qualifications to do so.
"In total she treated 91 patients, all of whom have since been contacted by the NHS. They will no doubt have been alarmed and concerned to hear of Opemuyi’s actions, as was the legitimate doctor whose identity she stole in order to commit her crimes.
"This was a complex investigation and I would like to pay tribute to my team of officers who worked extremely hard to get to the bottom of the case and bring Opemuyi to justice."
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