A senior GP who stole more than £1 million of money to fund his `desperate` addiction to online gambling has been struck off.

Dr Rumi Chhapia embezzled £1.13 million from a healthcare group as he chased the `panacea` of hitting the jackpot on internet situs judi slot Terbaik machines and roulette.

The crooked family doctor defrauded the group of GP surgeries immediately after being put in charge of its accounts, leaving its finances in disarray and other directors needing therapy.

He was jailed for three years and four months for the fraud by abuse of position in November last year.

The 45-year-old, who earned nearly £200,000 a year, lied to suspicious colleagues that he was `hacked` due to cyber crime as he made a total of 65 transfers to his own bank account.

Dr Rumi Chhapia, who embezzled £1.13 million from a Portsmouth healthcare group he co-founded as he chased the jackpot on internet slot machines and roulette to pay off his debts, has been struck off as a GP, a tribunal has ruled.































Pictured: Chhapia at his trial last year

Gambling companies were understood to be stumping up £904,000 of the NHS money Chhapia blew, in what a court heard is a `very unusual` instance after the doctor wrote grovelling letters to them.

He gambled away a total of £2.5 million, of which he recouped £1.2 million. The funds were stolen while the NHS was struggling to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic.

Now Chhapia has lost his licence to practise following a Medical Practitioners Tribunal.

The father-of-one - who has a seven-year-old child - co-founded Portsmouth Primary Care Alliance [PPCA], a group of 16 GP surgeries in the Hampshire city where he worked.

The 45-year-old, who earned nearly £200,000 a year, lied to suspicious colleagues that he was `hacked` due to cyber crime as he made a total of 65 transfers to his own bank account

In August 2020, Mark Stubbings - who was in charge of its finances - was signed off sick and Chhapia volunteered to be director and manage its accounts.

But, Mr Stubbings kept a `watching brief` and raised the alarm when he saw its £1 million account was reduced by £600,000.

Deceitful Chhapia claimed `all my accounts have been hacked` including his Amazon and PayPal - but continued to embezzle money.

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From August 20 to September 30 in 2020 he embezzled £1,133,704.50 in 64 separate payments.

PPCA director Mark Swindells said: `The financial impact was profound, the people of Portsmouth have lost a sizeable chunk of NHS money.

`The event has caused GP surgeries to lose trust in the PPCA and it has caused embarrassment.































Although we are financially solvent, it`s reduced the overall budget and cased cash flow issues.`

He added other directors `struggled to come to terms with his actions` and required counselling.

The father-of-one co-founded Portsmouth Primary Care Alliance [PPCA], and volunteered to be director and manage its accounts aftera colleague was signed off sick.































He defrauded the group of GP surgeries immediately after being put in charge, the tribunal heard

Chhapia, who was jailed for 40 months at Portsmouth Crown Court last year, has now been struck off the medical register.

Medical Practitioners Tribunal Chair Ian Comfort said: `Dr Chhapia placed patients at risk of harm and breached a fundamental tenet of the profession by taking funds that were necessary for patient care.

`The Tribunal took into account that this was not a single incident of fraud, but 64 separate transactions over 41 days, totaling a significant amount of money.`

Mr Comfort criticised Chhapia for `lying to colleagues` while continuing to make transfers and said there was little evidence of remediation.

When Chhapia, from Portsmouth, appeared in court last year and was jailed, his barrister Stan Reiz QC said he faced thousands of pounds of debt.

He said: `The temptation increased and he took some money and gambled it and lost it and he had crossed that line.

`The reason why the amount is so high is because he entered into a desperation phase and thought the next bet would be the panacea of all his bets.

`For many years he gambled for fun but then progressed to that next stage and entered the losing stage when a gambler begins to chase losses.`

Sentencing him at the time, Judge Keith Cutler said: `This is a very serious abrogation of your responsibilities as a doctor...































your duty should have been to provide the very best care to your patients and that should have been the pinnacle, but you were dishonest.

`In any event you were seduced by your addiction by your addiction to gambling and it was not just a one off.`

Of the £1.13 million he embezzled, Chhapia paid back £238,000 and gambling companies will pay back £904,000.