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A woman accused of lying to get a job as a senior nurse used email accounts belonging to other nurses to provide false references, a court has heard.

Cardiff Crown Court was told Tanya Nasir gave the details of a nurse called Maureen Westphal when applying for a ward manager post at the Princess of Wales Hospital's neonatal unit in Bridgend in 2019.

She began working in the unit in September that year, was suspended in February 2020 following concerns about her CV. She resigned in November 2020 two days before a planned disciplinary hearing.

Ms Nasir, 45, from Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, denies nine counts of fraud.

Ms Nasir claimed Ms Westphal was a senior nurse and her line manager at the neonatal unit at Hillingdon Hospital in London in June 2019.

But the court also heard Ms Westphal left Hillingdon Hospital in October 2018 and had no further access to her hospital email account.

Neither was she Ms Nasir's line manager or as senior as had been stated.

NHS counter fraud investigators Beverley Jones and Neil Jones interviewed Ms Nasir following her arrest in Brecon, Powys, in 2021.

In transcripts read to the jury they told Ms Nasir: "[Ms Westphal] quite categorically never provided you with a reference and at no time did she provide you with any details."

Mr Jones added Ms Nasir had instead simply "accessed her email and sent in through to (NHS job portal) Tracs".

Ms Nasir replied: "That is not true, I did not do that."

The court was told Ms Nasir, unbeknown to the person concerned, also accessed the email account of another nurse to provide a reference for herself while applying for the role of senior nurse at Hillingdon Hospital in 2015.

However, Ms Nasir insisted to investigators that person had been "happy to put me down as referee".

In addition, the court heard she failed to declare her criminal record when applying for the Hillingdon job, Ms Nasir having been convicted of four counts of benefit fraud in October 2010.

She was fined and given a community-based work order but claimed to have been the victim of an administrative misunderstanding about council tax payments.

Ms Nasir has also claimed to have taught at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, was an air traffic controller at Luton Airport as part of a work placement to do with her physics studies.

When challenged about this by an investigator she replied: "I have the essential qualifications for the jobs."

Her other claims include having served with the Army army in locations such as Syria and Haiti, where she claimed she was "solely responsible for the covert and safe extraction of VIP military personnel from danger zones".

But earlier the jury heard that searches of military records had revealed no trace of Ms Nasir ever having served in the army or as a reserve.

The trial continues.