A civil servant accused of pocketing wages from five full-time government jobs has said he failed to disclose his multiple roles because he was suffering from stress. 

Kashim Chowdhury, 55, is accused of exploiting the post-Covid work-from-home culture to take on multiple roles from unwitting government departments. 

He allegedly lied multiple times to secure overlapping jobs with employers including the Food Standards Agency, Home Office and Department for Business and Trade.

Between February 2020 and September 2023, he held eight positions, earning a total of £349,378, a jury at Southwark Crown Court was told. 

The court previously heard Chowdhury received £11,015.62 in take-home wages from five employers in April 2023, followed by another £8,745.88 in May.

At the peak of his employment, the civil servant allegedly held five full-time jobs and was contracted to work 183 hours a week – more hours than exist in seven days. 

Chowdhury allegedly claimed he needed to work remotely to look after his elderly mother and took sick leave to manage his workload. He even allegedly applied white make-up to dupe bosses into thinking he was ill, the trial previously heard. 

Giving evidence today, Chowdhury accepted that he had failed to complete employment forms accurately but said he had never intended to defraud anyone.

Kashim Chowdhury, 55, allegedly lied multiple times to secure overlapping jobs. Pictured heading to Southwark Crown Court

His barrister, Pieter Briegel, asked: ‘Do you accept there were failures on your part to complete forms accurately?’

He replied: ‘I accept I made mistakes but I do not believe there was criminal intent.’

Asked whether he accepted giving inaccurate statements about his employment history, he said: ‘I accept I did not provide accurate information but I do not accept there was an attempt to defraud.’

He claimed some of his colleagues and managers had known about his other jobs, identifying individuals at Defra, recruitment agency Venn Group, Tower Hamlets council and other employers.

Asked why he had failed to disclose other employment on some occasions, Chowdhury said he had been suffering from stress and the recurrence of PTSD.

He said he was originally diagnosed with PTSD in 2015 and that his symptoms had resurfaced while working for Defra and Tower Hamlets council in 2021.

Chowdhury also strongly rejected criticisms of his work performance made by former managers during the prosecution case.

Asked whether he accepted allegations that he had failed to complete tasks promptly or participate properly in meetings, he replied: ‘I absolutely reject them all.’

At the peak of his employment, Chowdhury (pictured arriving at Southwark Crown Court) allegedly held five full-time posts and was contracted to work 183 hours a week

Jurors previously heard that one of his managers at Defra described his performance as ‘very poor’ and claimed he could not carry out even basic management tasks. 

Chowdhury said he believed criticisms of his performance had been unfair.

‘I believe those comments were unfair and unreasonable,’ he told the court.

Chowdhury also gave evidence about his personal background and employment history. The court heard he has no previous convictions or cautions.

His parents had moved to Britain from Bangladesh and bought the family home in Princelet Street, where he grew up and continued to live.

He said he had lived at the property with his mother, who died in July 2023. Chowdhury told the jury her death had ‘overwhelmed’ him at the time. 

Defence barrister Pieter Briegel asked: ‘In a nutshell, what impact did her declining health have on you?’

The defendant replied: ‘The only word that comes to my head is it just destroyed me.’

Mr Briegel later asked: ‘To what extent was the stress in your life due to the number of jobs?’

Chowdhury replied: ‘The jobs at the time were my lifeline at the time, that was what I survived on at that particular moment.

‘And they gave me a link to the outside, they were the only thing I had to the outside world and were a distraction from what was going on in my personal life, looking after my mum at that time.’

The court previously heard that Chowdhury was signed off work by a doctor for some jobs due to ‘mixed anxiety and a depressive disorder’.

Asked about this, Chowdhury said: ‘I never wanted to go on sick leave… I just wanted to carry on working. It was my coping mechanism at that time.’

Chowdhury told jurors he married his wife in Bangladesh in May 2019, having met her through a relative two years earlier.

He described studying politics and history before obtaining a master’s degree in public policy and management. He subsequently worked in government, including a lengthy period at the Department for Education.

Chowdhury said he later struggled with uncertainty over employment, particularly after leaving an earlier government position.

He told the court he had received £10,000 in compensation following a personal injury claim connected with his PTSD.

Asked about his sense of job security, Chowdhury said: ‘I’ve always had short term, fixed term, insecure jobs and when it ended it would have a devastating effect on me.’

The court heard Chowdhury began working for Tower Hamlets Council in February 2020, before taking a second job with Defra in April 2021.

He acknowledged that he had not submitted an updated formal declaration of interests to the council when he took the additional job.

But he claimed he had told a colleague at Tower Hamlets about his Defra employment around December 2021 or January 2022.

The two roles overlapped for more than a year, the court heard. 

For four months in 2022, he also held a third position with East London NHS Trust.

In May 2023, he was allegedly being paid for five full-time jobs.

Chowdhury said: ‘I wasn’t certain the job at Tower Hamlets was going to last, so that created a lot of stress and anxiety.’

Prosecutor Lucy Organ told jurors that Chowdhury made false representations about his existing employment when applying for the roles.

‘Clearly, he would not have been employed by his employers if they had known he had multiple other full-time jobs,’ she said.

Chowdhury also gave evidence regarding three mobile phones and memory sticks which were lost after being collected during the investigation.

The court previously heard that the devices had been sent by courier to Defra’s digital forensics unit in Newcastle but never arrived and have never been found. 

Mr Briegel referred to an email from Chowdhury’s solicitor describing him as ‘extremely distressed and upset’ by the loss of the phones, which contained information he regarded as irreplaceable.

Asked what information had been stored on the devices, Chowdhury listed contemporaneous notes, personal journals, WhatsApp messages and documents relating to his government work.

He said the material included messages with line managers, colleagues and recruitment agencies, project plans, meeting notes, risk registers and reports.

The defendant was also questioned about a Sony Vaio laptop which the defence has suggested disappeared during a search of a property in Whitechapel.

Chowdhury said he became aware that the computer was missing around December 2023, when belongings seized during the investigation were being returned.

It contained work documents, project plans, meeting notes, risk registers and performance review reports, he said.

Chowdhury, of Whitechapel, denies nine counts of fraud.

The trial continues.