A DOCTOR who worked at York Hospital after hiding the fact he had hepatitis B has been jailed for 18 months.

Daniel Mutunda, 43, worked at York and eight other accident and emergency wards across Britain - defrauding the NHS out of more than £250,000 and endangering thousands of patients.

Congo-born Mutunda lied to hospital bosses after discovering a loophole and used a friend's blood sample with his job applications.

About 60,000 patient records had to be checked. Mutunda is believed to have had the highly infectious liver disease before he entered the UK. He was charged with unlawfully obtaining about £18,000 from York Hospital between December 2001, and February 2002.

He began cheating in 2001 after being refused a job at King George Hospital, London, after they diagnosed he had contracted the contagious virus.

He faked a blood test at a health clinic and began applying for posts.

The General Medical Council suspended him in 2004 after a woman who processed his failed application recognised him after another application was made under a different date of birth, but he still got work first in Barnsley and then Hull.

Jailing him, Judge Simon Jack said: "You put patients at risk. I take into account that 60,000 patients' records were checked and it transpires that none of them have suffered as a result.

"The most serious part is not the money you obtained, but the risk you posed to the public. That shows a degree of arrogance on your part to carry on regardless. The degree of worry to those patients who found out they had been treated by you is incalculable. I accept you must have been desperate to support your family."

Father-of-three Mutunda, of Ventnor Gardens, Barking, Essex, pleaded guilty to three charges of claiming he was medically fit to practise in Barnsley and Hull.

He asked for six similar offences to be taken into consideration. He worked in Barnsley, Exeter, Hull, York, East Sussex, Preston, and three London hospitals.

Defence barrister Bernard Gateshill said: "He arrived in the UK full of hope for the future and that of his family. The news, when it was given to him that he was positive for hepatitis B had a devastating impact on him. It was obvious that he was not thinking clearly at the time."

Dr Mutunda said: "I am not a criminal. God will be my judge."

Outside court, Detective Sergeant Dave Wescott said: "He has breached the confidence of the public and his employers. He has exposed numerous patients to un-necessary risks. The hospitals themselves have had to carry out their own inquiries at greater expense to the public purse."