King's / Queen's Bench Division of the High Court

QB-2018-004997 - [2025] EWHC 2301 (KB)

Fecha: 09-Sep-2025

Conclusions

Other inconsistencies

188.

The request by the Claimant that her mother assist her in manual labour is couched in terms which suggest that she was fully capable of playing her part in what needed to be done. It is accordingly consistent with and corroborative of the proposition that what can be seen on the March 2022 videos is not something exceptional.

189.

The reference in the Facebook messages to working for Amazon does not naturally read as if this was a first time for the Claimant, as she told me in evidence but I accept it is not wholly inconsistent with that.

190.

The Claimant’s May 2022 schedule put, as part of her case, that she was only fit for part-time work. I find that a little over two weeks later she told the investigator retained by her employer that she was working full-time hours. The only inference it is realistic for me to draw is that what was stated in the Claimant’s schedule was dishonest. I find the Claimant knew that she was working more than was stated in her schedule at the time she authorised it.

191.

It follows from my findings as to her false presentation of her disability that the Claimant not only did not reasonably need the support she claimed in her schedule but that she knew that to be so.

192.

Taking all these matters together I find that the Claimant knew that her evidence about her disability, her responsibility for horses, her vehicle and her employment which she has provided in her statement and her schedule for the purposes of these proceedings were untrue. I further find that she knew that she was being dishonest. Even if she did not know that, what she did was dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people.

Fundamental

193.

The Claimant’s dishonesty goes to the heart of her claim. She has been dishonest in relation to each aspect which I have discussed in order to present a picture that she is materially more disabled than she in fact is. That false picture supported a claim for higher general damages than her actual disability would have permitted, a significantly greater loss of earnings claim, principally because of the effect it has on her presentation of her residual earning capacity and justified a claim for future support to which she would otherwise have not been entitled.

194.

I would answer Mr Justice Cotter’s three questions from Muyepa as follows:

At what stage and in what circumstances did the Claimant’s dishonest conduct start? The first point at which I can find dishonest conduct was in the Claimant’s answers to Mr Lourie in December 2018. She told him that she had adapted her vehicle. She had not. I find that she is one of the cases to which Mr Justice Cotter referred when her symptoms had alleviated but at or before that point she took the decision to proceed as if they had not.

ii)

Does the dishonesty taint the whole of the claim or is it limited to a divisible element? The dishonesty taints the whole of the claim because it goes to the extent of the left upper limb disability which is the basis for the various claims for compensation. The dishonesty took the form of directly concealing the fact that the Claimant could do more than she stated and hiding the evidence of activities (or in the case of work their extent) which showed that she could do more. In the case of the car the dishonesty was sophisticated and involved others.

iii)

How does the value of the underlying valid claim (which the court must assess) compare with that of the dishonestly inflated claim? I found that the Claimant would not have succeeded in her claim. However I have considered the relative increase in the value which she presented compared with the underlying value. One of the ironies in this case is that the Claimant would still have had a substantial claim even if she had not been dishonest as her injury cut short her army career and she will struggle to earn or have a pension at a similar level. The credit she would have had to give for her residual income would however have been substantially greater and her other claims would have been a great deal more modest. I have not attempted a precise valuation but the underlying valid claim may well have been worth no more than 50% of the inflated claim.

195.

This is a claim which I have found to be fundamentally dishonest. The Claimant has persisted with her dishonesty over a long period. She has sought to engage others and her attempts to conceal the truth have been sophisticated. It is I find an appropriate case in which to grant permission to the Defendant to enforce any order for costs it may obtain against her to its full extent.