More bad medicine: Updates on the Zholia Alemi case
Bronwyn Rideout - 13th October 2025
I was in the middle of compiling a “Fortnight in Skeptical History” article when I realised that over two years, back when the newsletter was released weekly, I had already covered both weeks in the period from October 13th to October 26th. While I had to scrap that idea, I saw my entry for Zholia Alemi and was curious about the progress of her legal case in the UK. I covered Alemi in my October 2023 article about fake doctors or doctors who worked fraudulently in New Zealand. As I wrote back then:
Zholia Alemi was born in Iran in 1962. She arrived in New Zealand in 1986 and received permanent residency in 1988. In her application, she claimed to have completed multiple terms at nursing school between 1981-1986. She did study at the University of Auckland and did receive a Bachelors in Human Biology in 1992. She was enrolled in the medical degree but seems to have struggled, passing the first year exams after two tries and was dismissed after failing her second year exams.
In 1995, she relocated to the UK and registered with the General Medical Council as a doctor using a forged degree and letter of verification from the University of Auckland.
(Left) Alemi’s original degree; (Centre and Right) Alemi’s forgeries that were sent to the General Medical Council.
Alemi was granted provisional registration, and would work as a locum psychiatrist for 20 years across the NHS in the UK. Things started to unravel for Alemi when she was sentenced to 5 years in jail in 2018 for forging the will of a wealthy widow. A local journalist covering the case did what should have been done nearly 20 years prior, and contacted the University of Auckland. The call would reveal Alemi’s decades-long deception: She was never a doctor. Alemi would accumulate further charges, including 13 counts of fraud, 3 counts of obtaining pecuniary advantage, 2 counts of forgery, and 2 counts of using a false instrument. These new charges landed her in prison, and left many wondering if Alemi was sitting on the panel of their mental health tribunal or prescribed electroconvulsive treatment for themselves or their loved ones.
Since my 2023 profile, there have been two updates to Alemi’s court case. Catrin Owen of Stuff reported in July 2024 that Alemi had appealed her 7 year prison sentence, on the grounds of a human rights infringement. Namely, she distrusted her legal team and claimed that she was not provided sufficient access to support her defence. Alemi also blamed the UK’s General Medical Council for any harm caused by her practice, because they failed to identify her errors.
The most recent update came in June 2025. While it is estimated that Alemi may have earned up to $1.3 million over the course of her career, the Manchester Crown Court ordered the fake psychiatrist to either repay the NHS £406,624, or spend 2.5 more years in the clink. The GMC, for its part, has reportedly reviewed the qualifications of 3,117 foreign-trained doctors who came to practice in the UK via the same Commonwealth route Alemi took. This pathway had initially allowed doctors from Commonwealth countries to bypass testing on language and medical skills required of applicants from non-Commonwealth countries. The pathway has since been abolished, but all 3,117 doctors have been confirmed to hold genuine degrees.
This hasn’t prevented UK woo peddlers from hawking their evidence-based methods of fraud detection. One Irish polygraph company has proposed that their special questionnaires and a lie detector test will help weed out the fakes:
