We recently had a case which was featured in the national press…… https://lnkd.in/ecVkbGsg Over 12 months of work went into this case which concluded with a guilty plea for contempt of court on Friday, 24th May before a High Court Judge in Plymouth. Whilst contempt cases are not uncommon, this one raised a couple of interesting points. It highlighted the importance of the initial Claims Notification Form (CNF) as this formed the basis for the contempt proceedings. Contempt cases are often founded upon multiple false statements and prolonged dishonesty. In this case her Solicitors closed their file not long after the submission of the CNF, following disclosure of the CCTV footage. The CNF contained a false account of the accident, and this document was endorsed by a statement of truth, signed by the Claimant’s legal representatives on her behalf. There were no further documents produced by the Claimant and no proceedings were issued. We were required to make an Application under Part 8 seeking permission to bring the contempt proceedings. Permission was granted in November 2023 and the case now sits in the updated White Book (CPR 32.14) as the example case to follow where there are no existing proceedings: "An application in such a case should be made under CPR r.81.3(3) by way of a Pt 8 claim (see e.g. Iceland Foods Ltd v Birch [2023] EWHC 3390 (KB)) as there are no existing High Court or County Court proceedings." We were delighted with the outcome, and it demonstrates that dishonesty in even one document where there are no existing proceedings can still lead to a finding of contempt. I'd also like to thank Judith Burns for all the great work on the case.
Andrea Hughes
10mo
This is an awesome result. So proud of our little team for fighting back. Well done Nick and Judith!
Rosa Edwards
10mo
Brilliant Nick. Hopefully this will deter fraudulent Claimants of the future. Massive well done to you and Judith Burns - I know a lot of hard work went into this.
Kirsty Frackleton
10mo
Great work Nick! Well done 👏🏻
Kristian Barrett
10mo
Great job team.
Alec Hancock
10mo
My goodness... I know the Mirror described it as 'taking a dive' but that was an awful attempt of faking a slip. How she thought that would not be seen on CCTV or misconstrued as being genuine is beyond me. I say this again ... C sols need to stop signing CNFs unless they have a signed copy by C themselves. It is just not worth the risk and might discourage prospective fraud if they are asked to sign a statement of truth and what that would mean.
Giles Kellner
10mo
That’s a great outcome, Nick-well done to you and the team.
Barry Jones
10mo
Good work! Well done 👏
Rob Armstrong
10mo
Well done Iceland, some folk think supermarkets an easy touch.. Good to see Iceland standing up to theses lyers, cheats and thieves.
Claims Partnerships Lead at Ando Insurance
10moGreat result, Nick! Great to see you putting the Mahi in and getting the rewards