Brent McDonald considers the high cost of exaggeration & fraud
Mark Noble was seriously injured when his motorcycle collided with a car driven by the defendant. Liability was admitted. At an assessment hearing in 2008 the claimant gave evidence that he remained dependent on crutches and a wheelchair, would never work again, and needed daily care and assistance. Damages were assessed by the judge in the sum of just under £3.4m.
By autumn 2008 the defendant’s insurers received confidential information that the claimant had exaggerated his claim and as a result undertook covert surveillance on seven occasions, each time filming for several hours. The insurers alleged that the films showed the claimant walking without the aid of crutches or a stick, stretching and bending without difficulty, driving a dumper truck and carrying out activities such as sawing wood.
The defendant’s insurers applied for and obtained an injunction restraining Mr Noble from spending the rest of his damages and gave an undertaking to bring an appeal out of time. The allegations of exaggeration were, as the Court of Appeal observed “hotly contested” (Owens
