The High Court has ordered the removal of a nurse’s name from her professional body’s register over her conviction of a €730,000 insurance fraud arising from a false breast cancer claim.
Nurse Gehan Massoud (47) and her surgeon husband, Emad Massoud (54), were found guilty by a jury in March 2008 of defrauding two insurance companies through lodging false claims on the basis of a tissue sample from Mrs Massoud’s mother, who had just been diagnosed in Egypt as having breast cancer. They claimed the sample came from Gehan Massoud herself.
The Massouds, Woodview, Brownstown, Ratoath, Co Meath, originally from Alexandria in Egypt, had pleaded not guilty but were found guilty of defrauding €685,658 from Scottish Provident Ltd on March 25th, 2002, and €45,338 from Lifetime Assurance Company Ltd on February 22nd 2002.
Mr Massoud was sentenced to four years imprisonment while his wife received a suspended three-year sentence. The trial judge said he didn’t want to incarcerate both at the same time as they had four children.
They appealed but the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) upheld their convictions last July.
Last November, the High Court ordered Mr Massoud’s name be removed from the medical register following a hearing before the Fitness to Practice Committee of the Medical Council.
Today, the nurses’ regulatory body, An Bord Altranais, applied for a similar order in relation to Mrs Massoud. The High Court heard the Board was applying for the order because she had been convicted of an indictable offence.
The President of the High Court President, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said he was satisfied to order erasure of Ms Massoud’s name from the register as requested.