A SCOTS conman who lied about being a nurse and pocketed over £130,000 in a funeral service scam has been struck off the register.
Barry Fisher, who has also gone by Barry Stevenson-Hamilton, was convicted of fraud in a crime which saw him defraud 49 people across Fife in a three-year span from 2016-2019.
The 41-year-old pocketed an eye-watering £130,207 from elderly and vulnerable clients of his company, Stevenson Funeral Directors.
The former support worker’s scheme involved falsely leading customers into believing that they would be provided with a pre-paid funeral plan.
Instead Fisher, of Edinburgh, shredded all of the client’s details and pocketed the money intended for their funeral services.
The fraudster was subsequently tried at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in July last year (2022), where he was jailed for 33 months.
This was followed by a further conviction in December 2022, which saw Fisher found guilty of falsely representing himself as a registered nurse during the Covid pandemic in January 2021.
Fisher admitted in a trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court to having “intent to deceive” while pretending to be a fully registered nurse at an address in Lanarkshire.
He was also placed on a Temporary Suspension Order (TSO) on 9 March 2019, which he subsequently failed to inform his then-employer of.
A hearing of care watchdog the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) considered his fitness to practise following Fisher’s convictions.
The SSSC panel agreed on Wednesday that the best course of action was to remove Fisher from the register entirely.
The panel agreed that Fisher’s fitness to practice was impaired, stating: “Social services workers are required to act with honesty and integrity at all times.
“You have been convicted of portraying yourself as a registered nurse and convicted of fraud.
“Such convictions represent an abuse of the trust and confidence placed in you, and represent the most serious of departures from the codes of practice.
“These behaviours amount to impairment that is fundamentally incompatible with professional registration.
“The behaviour that amounted to you being convicted of fraud caused members of the public significant financial and emotional harm.
“These behaviours indicate underlying values and attitudinal issues.
“These behaviours could have placed service users at a risk of harm had you worked in a role that you were not appropriately registered or qualified to work in.
“All the behaviours resulting in convictions were intentional in nature and are undoubtedly very serious.
“They amount to a pattern of misleading behaviour that by their nature are more inclined to be repeated.
“Repetition of similar behaviours, in any sort of setting, would put service users and the wider public at an increased risk of harm.”
Fisher was found to have shown no remorse with the panel agreeing: “There is little evidence you acknowledge your failings and the pattern of behaviour and lack of insight suggest the behaviour is likely to be repeated.”
The panel agreed that a removal was the necessary sanction, reasoning: “The behaviours were of the highest seriousness.
“You did not inform your employer of the imposition of a Temporary Suspension Order.
“The behaviour in respect of your fraud caused significant harm and was a pattern that occurred over a period of three years.
“The risk of harm that could be caused by a repeat of the behaviour is acute.
“The behaviour resulting in your conviction for fraud amounts to an abuse of trust when considering the relationship between you and the people you defrauded.
“You benefited financially through fraud and held yourself out to be a nurse in the knowledge you were not. These behaviours are serious concealments of wrongdoing.”
