The doctor who rigged his salary and swindled £68,000 from the NHS to pay for his £800,000 gambling habit can’t return to hospital work
- Dr Aled Meirion Jones, 41, stole almost £68,000 from a Cardiff hospital
- The doctor needed the money to pay off gambling debts of up to £800,000
- Jones pleaded guilty to fraud and received a two-year suspended sentence.
- Medical license initially revoked for one year, but the suspension has been extended
An NHS kidney specialist who swindled nearly £68,000 from the health service to pay off his £800,000 gambling debts is unable to return to hospital work.
Dr Aled Meirion Jones, 41, stole 420 checks from the bereavement services department at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff over a two-year period.
Jones also forged checks and made claims for shifts he missed while working as a registrar in the nephrology and transplant unit.
He claimed by substitute shifts that he had not worked in four hospitals.
Jones, who developed a gambling addiction while studying at Oxford University, had “wasted” as much as £800,000. His apartment was repossessed after he missed mortgage payments
Jones was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work after defrauding the NHS out of almost £68,000.
He was sentenced to two years in prison in March 2021, suspended for two years, and ordered to work 200 hours of unpaid work.
Jones’ medical license was suspended for at least twelve months in October 2021.
The court held a review hearing after Jones applied to return to work, at which evidence about Jones’ recovery from his addiction was considered.
On December 1, the court concluded that Jones was not ready to return to work at the hospital and agreed to extend his suspension for another four months.
Investigators discovered that Jones had a gambling addiction, which began when he bet on World Cup soccer matches while studying medicine at Oxford University.
Jones said it was hard to pinpoint exactly when his gambling became pathological, but he remembers gambling for the first time as a student.
“It was at university when there was a promotion in the paper and all my friends were making a bet where you put up £10 and win or lose you’d get your £10 back,” he said.
Jones, 41, lost £10,000 in one night in 2009 betting on a tennis match between Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro.
Cardiff Crown Court heard last year that Jones thought there was “no victim” when he stole 420 checks from a bereavement office at the University Hospital of Wales.
“That’s when the seed of the game was planted in my head.”
Jones lost £10,000 in one night in 2009 in a US Open tennis match between Roger Federer and Juan Martín del Potro.
Cardiff Crown Court was informed last year that Jones’ apartment was repossessed when he defaulted on his mortgage.
Jones said his addiction was “catastrophic” and had caused him to lose £800,000.
“I am enormously ashamed and always will be, but I can’t change the past and all I can do is pick myself up and try to do good things,” he said.
“When I try to explain this to people who may not have experienced addiction, I don’t know how they can understand because I struggle with it myself.”
Cardiff Crown Court also heard that Jones “thought there was no victim” when he took checks from a bereavement office and cashed nearly £34,000 between March 2017 and March 2019.
He pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of office and fraud by misrepresentation.
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