British GP who ran away with $5,60,000 of NHS money found dead with lover on holiday island
A British doctor who fled to a holiday island with $5,60,000 of government money shot and killed his girlfriend before turning the gun on himself.
42-year-old Dr. Titus Bradley and his partner, 28-year-old Noemi Gergely, had made away over a year ago with pension and staff pay cash from his four government practices, reported The Telegraph.
Yesterday, law enforcement on the Atlantic island of Santo Antao in Cape Verde revealed that the duo was found dead in a guest house. A preliminary investigation concluded their deaths to be a murder-suicide case.
After reports of an altercation and two gunshots that were heard by neighbors, both sustained single bullet wounds to the head.
Authorities confirmed that the duo had checked into the holiday home two days before their deaths on April 15, reported The Sun.
Manager of the Divin' Art guesthouse, Mr. Helder Bentub, found them lying in the bathroom, next to their pet dog.
He said: “The day of the shooting was no different from any others. They went out after breakfast to go walking and exploring and came back around 5 pm.
“The only difference that day was that there was a terrible argument. They were in their room but we could hear shouting and the banging of doors and windows.
“They came out of their rooms and went to the restaurant and argued again and the woman told one of our staff that her companion had hit her.
“We heard the shots ring out a couple of minutes later when they were both back in their room.
“We found them lying dead in the bathroom after forcing our way in. The dog was with them but alive.
“The police station is very near and they got here a couple of minutes later but there was nothing they could do to save them.”
Cipriano Bandeira, the local police chief, said: “We are not looking for anyone else at this stage. As far as we are concerned with the evidence we have got at the moment, this is a homicide-suicide.
“We believe the man shot the woman with a 6.35 pistol before using it to kill himself.
“We recovered the weapon from the scene.
“Both gun wounds were fatal wounds to the head. We received the alarm at 5.53pm on April 15 and were there within a couple of minutes.
“The couple in question had checked into their guest house on April 13 and were due to leave on April 16.
“They came from the neighboring island of Sao Vicente which is about an hour away by boat.
"Our understanding is that they had been living on a fishing boat or yacht in the marina on Sao Vicente for at least three months before this happened.”
Back in 2012, Dr. Bradley's marriage to his 45-year-old partner Lucy broke apart due to an alleged affair with a colleague. The pair had an 11-year-old son together.
Bradley then met his current partner, Noemi, in a London club where she worked as a PR girl. Noemi was of Hungarian descent.
The doctor's scheduled surgeries started failing due to a shortage of staff. He performed operations around Hastings and East Sussex.
While his colleagues blamed him for mismanagement, they advised his patients to go to Accident and Emergency facilities nearby.
Finally, the doctor, who was an avid sea angler, did not return from a three-week fishing trip to the South Atlantic’s Ascension Island like he was supposed to. Due to his absence, all the scheduled surgeries went awry.
A source said: “He never came back but Noemi returned on her own saying they’d had a row.
“NHS money supposed to pay wages and fund the practices, between £150,000 and £200,000, then disappeared. Up to £200,000 to pay into staff pensions also went missing, along with Noemi. After she’d gone the money was found to have been transferred to a bank account in her name in Romania.
“Dr. Bradley had been lying to the NHS for months, getting paid for appointments which simply weren’t available to patients.”
While two of his operations were closed yesterday, two others are under new ownership as of the moment.
A former employee of his said: “Staff went a good few months without getting paid properly last year.”
The Cape Verde archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 350 miles off the west of Africa near Senegal, consists of ten islands and eight islets.
Santo Antao is the westernmost and largest of the so-called Barlavento islands of Cape Verde.