An insurance fraudster from South Wales has been sentenced after he tried use fake invoices as part of a £300,000 insurance claim for damage to two catering vans.
The case was passed to detectives in the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department at the City of London Police when investigators for NFU Mutual suspected false invoices had been provided to them.
Richard William Kirkup Lewis, of Llandeilo, Camarthenshire pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment (suspended for two years) at Swansea Crown Court on Friday 17 June. Lewis was also ordered to repay £37,464 in costs to NFU Mutual, pay £2,800 in court costs and pay £100 victim surcharge.
In August 2013, Lewis’s neighbour was said to have been carrying out some repair work to a fence on Lewis’s land. The neighbour was using a tractor, when it rolled down hill and crash into two of Lewis’s catering vans that were parked nearby. As the neighbour attempted to drive the tractor away, the catering vans caught alight, completely destroying both vans.
Lewis, who was away working at the time of the incident, returned home and then claimed against his neighbour’s vehicle insurance for the cost of the two catering vans and also made claims for loss of earnings. In total, Lewis claimed that the two vans and equipment were worth in excess of £167,000 and said his lost earnings were in the region of £150,000.
Due to the high value of the claims, the insurer – NFU Mutual – appointed a claims investigator from the Investigation Services team at Cunningham Lindsey but when he went to check the damaged vehicles, Lewis stated he had already sold them to a local scrap metal dealer. Furthermore, the vehicle identification numbers (VINs) on the vans were completely destroyed by the fire. Lewis had no written record of the VINs that would allow NFU Mutual to estimate the true value of the vans, so he was asked to provide invoices from when he bought the vans.
Lewis then provided NFU Mutual with two documents that he said were invoices for the vans from a local manufacturer. However, when the investigator made further checks, the invoices proved to be fakes and found Lewis hadn’t purchased them from where he claimed.
When confronted, Lewis then changed his story saying that he bought the vans from a traveller, but he was no longer able to get in touch with him to verify this. At this point, the details were passed to IFED detectives to investigate.
Lewis was arrested in March 2015 and after further enquiries, Lewis was charged with fraud by false representation.
Detective Constable Aman Taylor, from the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department said:
“It’s clear that Lewis lied and went to great lengths to try and support his very large compensation claim. Anyone who has supposedly invested over £150,000 in equipment would have surely kept receipts, invoices or had some kind of record to show their true value.
“Yet Lewis was unable to provide any documents or evidence that supported his claims that the two vans were worth as much as he claimed so he decided to provide fake documents instead. His actions were not just dishonest, but they were also illegal and this should serve as a warning to anyone to think twice before making false insurance claims.”
Commenting on the case, Rob Spiegelhalter, Fraud Manager at NFU Mutual said: “As a mutual insurer, being tough on fraud and the causes of fraud helps us to protect our members and reduce the cost of premiums. In this case, with the help of the Investigation Services team at Cunningham Lindsey, we were able to assist the IFED investigation and expose claims fraud against one of our members.
“As this case shows, fraud is not a victimless crime and we believe the court’s decision sends a strong message to those who might be tempted to commit insurance fraud.”