In a case which marked a hardening of judicial attitudes towards those engaged in fraudulent compensation claims, a man who repeatedly lied in a bid to win up to £15,000 in damages for a road accident which never happened was handed a 12-month jail term for his deceit.
The man had signed six documents, the contents of which he swore were true but which were false in their entirety. He hoodwinked a doctor who examined him into believing that he had suffered a whiplash injury in a collision with another vehicle. Engineering evidence established that there had been no such accident.
The man’s case against the other alleged driver’s motor insurers only collapsed after he had given false evidence in court under oath. The trial judge said that his account of the collision was ludicrous and condemned him as a patently and persistently dishonest witness who was wholly unworthy of belief.
In the circumstances, the insurers launched proceedings to have him committed to prison for contempt. In jailing him, the High Court noted that a message needed to be sent out to those tempted to interfere with the course of justice and perpetrate serious frauds on the insurance industry. By his own admission, he had persisted in pursuing a wholly false and groundless claim all the way to trial.