Zholia Alemi posed worked for two decades, earning between £1.1 million and £1.3 million
A New Zealand woman who forged her medical degree has lost her appeal in the United Kingdom to have her convictions and sentence overturned.
The UK Court of Appeal shot down Zholia Alemi's request to have her seven-year sentence overturned, citing no "arguable grounds" to do so.
Alemi was convicted and sentenced last year after it was discovered that she forged her medical degree in the University of Auckland to register for General Medical Council (GMC) and get employed in the UK.
She posed as a psychiatrist there and worked for the UK's National Health Service and for private providers for two decades, where she earned between £1.1 million and £1.3 million.
Fraud discovery
Her fraud was discovered after she was convicted at Carlisle Crown Court in 2018 in a separate case when she attempted to forge the will of an elderly vulnerable patient to benefit financially.
Philip Coleman, a journalist in Cumbria, verified Alemi's credentials in New Zealand and discovered her lies. By 2019, the police searched and discovered what they described as a "forger's kit" of dry transfer letters in her property in Northern Ireland.
Trial over her fraud further revealed that Alemi never completed her medical studies and was never awarded the relevant medical degree. She only completed Bachelor of Human Biology in 1992.
In defence, Alemi argued that she managed to practice for some 20 years as evidence that she was "capable of completing the exams and qualifications in New Zealand."
She was convicted in February 2023 of forgery and was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.
Appeal in court
Alemi tried to appeal the sentence, arguing that she was not fully responsible for the failures and harms caused by her practices as the GMC failed to pick up "obvious errors" in the original application.
According to the Court of Appeals, the judge was critical of the GMC's failure to identify the obvious errors in Alemi's application.
"But that does not mean that the applicant was not herself fully responsible for the consequences of her fraud," the decision read.
"It may be that someone else might have been responsible in part in other ways, but that does not in any sense mitigate her actions. For all those reasons, we can still find no arguable grounds for appeal against sentence."
Alemi also attempted to appeal against her conviction, complaining that she had been denied bundles and an anonymity order and that no reference had been made to her proper diagnosis of autism.
She has also referred to a diagnosis of Asperger's. She further pointed out that she had been blocked access to prosecution cases and had limited access to printing, among other concerns.
The Single Judge went through all the complaints in detail, according to the court, which rejected the appeal.
"It is sufficient for us to say that having looked at all the material with considerable care, we have been unable to identify any arguable grounds of appeal against conviction and in our judgment the conviction is safe," it ruled.
