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

The earliest account of the accident is contained in a form, MOD Accident Reporting Form 510, which was completed by L/Bdr Oldfield on 8 September 2015, four days after it happened. The form invites answers to the questions ‘How?’ ‘What?’ and ‘Why?’ and the answers given by L/Bdr Oldfield were as follows,

In her oral evidence L/Bdr Oldfield told the court that she had completed this form having gone through the “How?/What?/Why?” answers with the Claimant and she confirmed its contents. In her witness statement dated 11 June 2021, the Claimant recalled a form being completed by L/Bdr Oldfield and her signing it but it is her evidence that this was not the MOD Form 510 dated 8 September 2015. No other form has come to light and it was L/Bdr Oldfield’s evidence that the system at the time involved the electronic submission of an unsigned MOD Form 510. This form was the one she sent to her superior officer, Captain Watson. There is in the trial bundle an identically worded MOD Form 510 from Captain Watson with the later date, 24 September 2015, presumably the date when he sent it on.

The first available account of the accident written by the Claimant herself is in her February 2016 claim under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme. It has two material differences to L/Bdr Oldfield’s report.

First, the Claimant stated that the lesson had been going well and swapping horses was simply normal practice. There is at least the implication in L/Bdr Oldfield’s report that the Claimant had been struggling and, because of that, she had had to be transferred to Jazz, ‘the safest horse in the lesson’. The Claimant now accepts that L/Bdr Oldfield swapped her from Narlia to Jazz because she was struggling.

The second difference is that the Claimant recalled that prior to the fall that caused her injury, Jazz threw her off but she was uninjured and so she got back on again. The accident was therefore her second fall from Jazz during the lesson. This is a material difference between the parties.

The Claimant provided her first witness statement dealing with the circumstances of the accident in June 2021, a long time after the accident. L/Bdr Oldfield’s November 2020 statement is similarly removed from events. They maintained their contrasting positions about the number of falls in those statements and in their oral evidence.

I heard evidence from Gunner Collins, one of the other recruits participating in the lesson. She had provided a statement in 2019 but had then left the army in 2022. I therefore regard her as an independent witness. Gunner Collins did not recall the earlier fall and told the court that, if the Claimant had fallen off, the whole lesson would have been stopped. The implication of that evidence was that if that had happened, she would have remembered it. L/Bdr Oldfield’s evidence was to similar effect and she also drew attention to the fact that there was no mounting block at the outside riding school and that remounting the Claimant would have been a significant process.

The two equestrian experts reporting to the court were present when L/Bdr Oldfield gave evidence. Neither questioned her general competence or suitability as an instructor for recruits such as the Claimant.

I find that the balance of probability is in favour of the Defendant’s case on the issue of whether the Claimant fell once or twice from Jazz. I therefore accept that she only fell off Jazz once. My reasons are as follows: L/Bdr Oldfield provided an account within a matter of days of the accident and would, I find, have mentioned the earlier fall if it had happened. She presented as a witness whose priority was to tell the truth and was, for instance, frank in her evidence about her attitude to equipping recruits with correctly sized boots, even though it might be seen as somewhat casual.I further find that the MOD Form 510 filled in by L/Bdr Oldfield was one that the Claimant herself had seen and had had input into. The reasons I so find are first that that is L/Bdr Oldfield’s evidence which I accept and, second, that that is consistent with the terms of the Claimant’s own request for the MOD Form 510 in her February 2016 compensation application. There the Claimant refers to it by name ‘the MOD 510 form’. L/Bdr Oldfield’s evidence that those forms were submitted unsigned and online was not contested. In contrast to her later evidence, the Claimant did not suggest in her February 2016 application that there was a second, separate form which she did sign. I find it was the only report form. L/Bdr Oldfield’s evidence on whether there was one fall or two is supported by the evidence of Gunner Collins who would have remembered if there had been an earlier fall. Finally, L/Bdr Oldfield came across both to me and the equestrian experts as a competent instructor. L/Bdr Oldfield had already swapped the Claimant’s horse because she had noticed that the Claimant was having difficulty controlling Narlia. If the transfer to Jazz had compounded the Claimant’s difficulties such as to cause her actually to fall off, then I find that L/Bdr Oldfield would have taken further action rather than permitting her to remount the same horse and continue.