But Nasir did not have the clinical skills she claimed to have including, crucially, paediatric resuscitation.
NHS counter fraud investigators Neil Jones and Beverley Jones, who are both former police officers, led the investigation.
They said they had never met anyone like Tanya Nasir.
“She was belligerent in her answers. She was determined to stick to the fact that she had done nothing wrong at all,” said Ms Jones.
“It was astounding really, the lies that she told and how she maintained those lies throughout the course of the investigation and the trial here.”
In one recorded interview, Mr Jones said: “We’ve clearly established that you’ve never served in any capacity in the Army as an officer, a regular soldier or a reservist. There’s clear unequivocal witness evidence to these facts.”
He asked Nasir if she agreed that some of the information she had provided in her application forms was “fraudulent”, to which she simply responded: “No.”
In another interview, Ms Jones asked why all the charities she claimed to have worked with on overseas humanitarian missions had never heard of her.
Nasir responded: “There isn’t a reasonable explanation. At the end of the day, I can only give an account of what I’ve done. I can’t give an account of their record keeping.”
At one point, she was asked for her military service number and said she could not recall it. She also could not remember which airport she flew to Basra in Afghanistan from, suggesting Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick.
But perhaps the most telling moment in those interviews was when she was asked about her qualifications.
Nasir claimed to have degrees in subjects including physics and astrophysics, as well as qualifications in operating theatre technique, leadership, teaching and many more.
Asked why none of the universities had any record of her, she said: “I don’t know… all I can tell you is that if I was going to pretend to have qualifications, there are better paid jobs than nursing.”
