A STUDENT who failed her exams got a job as a radiographer despite not having the correct qualifications, a court heard yesterday.

Martha Kirkwood-Rhinds, 27, was employed by South Tees NHS Trust after she claimed to have passed the first two years of her diagnostic radiography degree at Bradford University.

But she had failed in the second year of her BSc and her lie was only detected following a routine audit of new employees' qualifications after she joined the trust.

Few details about the case were revealed at Teesside Crown Court yesterday, where she admitted one count of obtaining money by deception and three counts of forgery.

Other specimen charges relating to the same deception were left on the file.

As well as claiming she had the relevant qualifications, Kirkwood-Rhinds told bosses she was registered with the Health Professional Council, which was untrue.

The three charges of forgery relate to letters, dated July 10, July 21 and August 11, last year, which she gave to her employers, Elaine McNulty and Emma Chapman, which they took to be genuine.

Mitigating, Peter Sabiston said his client had one caution for theft from her employer on her record. He said: "She accepts she is on the cusp of a custodial sentence."

The defendant was bailed on the condition that she lives at Kelloe Close, Hardwick, Stockton, Teesside, until she returns to court for sentencing next month.

Judge David Bryant told her: "All sentences, including a prison sentence, are available in this case."

Bradford University's website informs prospective students that the radiography course "involves the use of highly-sophisticated, expensive and potentially dangerous equipment."

Sue Covill, director of human resources at the Middlesbrough-based South Tees trust, said: "We pride ourselves on a having a highly skilled and specialised team of people who work very hard to provide excellent care for patients. We want to reassure people that patient safety was not compromised in any way and senior staff always supervise newly qualified radiographers during the course of their work.

"Employing properly qualified and trained staff to protect patients' safety and well-being is our priority. This has been a very unfortunate case and lessons have been learned from this. As soon as we were aware there was a problem members of staff acted quickly to resolve the situation."

After the case, a spokesman for the NHS Counter-fraud Service said: "All fraud against the NHS is unacceptable, and we hope this conviction sends a strong signal that if you defraud the NHS you will be caught and subsequently punished."

Graham Maloney, a North-East patients' rights campaigner, said: "This is very, very worrying. It highlights deficiencies in the checks the NHS have in place to ensure people working in our hospitals have the correct qualifications."

The case was adjourned for pre-sentence reports to be prepared before sentencing in the week beginning July 11.