Health consultant earning £300 an hour jailed for benefit fraud

Despite making more than 300 per hour, owning properties in Dubai and flash cars and living in a 1m house in Surrey, Zahid Ali claimed a total of about 15,000 in housing benefit, council tax benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance.

The 47-year-old father-of-three failed to declare earnings of 212,000 between 2004 and 2008 which he made through his management consultancy company Coulsdon Limited.

While keeping secret what he was paid for advising GPs how to make more money from their surgeries – and his lavish lifestyle – he drew benefits from Sutton Council, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Croydon Crown Court heard he had claimed housing benefit for two properties owned by his wife in Lind Road, Sutton, and Church Lane, Hooley, in Coulsdon, Surrey.

The couple had built the gated Coulsdon mansion themselves. Meanwhile they lived in a seven-bedroom gated property in Kingswood, Surrey, owned by Ali's parents-in-law.

Ali also owned a Mercedes, a Jeep and two properties in the United Arab Emirates.

He was jailed for nine months after pleading guilty to seven counts of benefit fraud.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Heather Baucher told Ali : "Benefit payments are for vulnerable people – not to support people who are deeply greedy, manipulative and cunning."

She added: "I doubt this would have come to light unless you were caught red-handed. The investigations were both detailed and properly maintained throughout. Your housing benefit claim was false from the outset, where you deliberately provided false tenancy agreements, false letters from an alleged landlord, which involved careful, thoughtful planning."

She ordered Ali to pay costs of 3,000 to the prosecution, saying he was "obviously a man of substantial means".

Ali was caught while working as a practice manager for Nork Clinic in Banstead, Surrey, after an investigation by Sutton Council's trading standards officers and the DWP.

It emerged that he had also worked elsewhere, including for Brent primary care trust in north west London and for a healthcare organisation called AT Medics.

The court heard he earned 325 per hour through his consultancy firm.

He had taken half-days as leave from work to sign on and pretended to be in hospital for a while so he could not go and claim his Jobseekers' Allowance.

In fact he was away working in Leicester at the time.

The executive member for finance and efficiency at Sutton Council, John Drage, said: "It is shocking that a man with a decent job who is able to enjoy luxuries like flashy cars and foreign holiday homes would try to take money from those that really need it."