13.08.18
Gloucestershire trust boss who treated NHS as a ‘cash machine’ jailed
A senior NHS manager who coaxed his trust for £650,000 to fund a luxury lifestyle has been jailed.
Royston Dyke, 58, of Ivy Mews, Stroud Road, Gloucester, was the ringleader of a gang who defrauded Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust of hundreds of thousands of pounds— as they ploughed the money into their own homes to live a life of lavishness from 2012 to 2015.
Dyke exploited his position as the trust’s associate director of capital and development, putting £200,000 of NHS payments into his bank accounts, including £142,000 in cash.
Prosecutors said Dyke led plans to steal cash from the trust by raising purchase orders for work for small amounts of money that did not need any superior authorisation. He would then request invoices from the accomplices but work was actually being done on group’s own houses.
He was jailed along with Vincent Smith, Graham Fallows, and Peter Potente in May— however reporting restrictions meant that the case could not be revealed until today.
Judge Mark Horton, in his ruling, said: “You created false invoices for work not done for the trust itself.
“You, Mr Dyke, had a lavish lifestyle. In an interview with a probation officer, you describe yourself as being simply greedy. You describe how you swept all of your co-defendants into this. You committed this fraud, you ran it.”
Det Insp Wayne Usher, head of fraud and financial crime at Gloucestershire Police, said it was “quite clear” Dyke wanted to live a lavish lifestyle.
“He treated the NHS like a cash machine,” he added.
In a statement, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said Dyke “grossly abused his position of trust” by taking money away from the NHS to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Gloucestershire NHS FT noted that they will recover 90% of the £594,433 taken under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
“The severity of his sentence, the financial ruin and the loss of reputation of Dyke and his co-conspirators sends out a strong message of deterrent to anyone who thinks they can cheat the system in such a way and get away with it,” it added.
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Image credit: Geograph