Contempt of Court
North Bristol NHS Trust v White [2022] EWHC 1313 (QB), [2022] All ER (D) 02 (Jun)
The Queen’s Bench Division allowed the claimant’s claim for committal for contempt. The claim arose out of an earlier clinical negligence claim brought by the defendant against the claimant. The defendant alleged that the claimant had been negligent by failing to refer her for a neurosurgical assessment and further asserted that had that referral taken place she would have been offered a spinal operation within 48 hours which would have frozen her symptoms in time and prevented any further deterioration. The claimant instructed surveillance agents to video the defendant. That surveillance showed the defendant walking around a number of stores without any apparent limp, slowness or disability. She drove to and from those stores, getting in and out of her car freely and easily. It was apparent to any objective observer of those videos that the defendant’s complaints made to various medical and other experts and reproduced in the experts reports, signed by those experts under CPR Pt 35 with statements of truth,