Personal injury fraudster jailed for 6 months

Surveillance-footage-of-personal-injury-insurance-fraudster

One Insurance foils personal injury fraud

One Insurance has successfully brought proceedings against claimant, Mr Patrick Beasley, who falsely exaggerated his injuries after a traffic accident in 2014. 

Inventing disability, claiming a lack of mental capacity, suffering grossly disabling pain and unable to care for himself, drive or work were some of the claims heard at Nottingham Justice Centre on the 19 October 2020. 

All of which were exaggerated and culminated in Mr Beasley receiving a 6 months prison sentence after pleading guilty to 22 counts of contempt. 

One Insurance’s Legal Director - Bill Broughton was present in court.  ‘This is a sad case and we take no pleasure in the outcome.  However, we have a duty of care to our customers and the wider insurance industry to investigate and eliminate fraud.’ 

The ABI recently reported 107,000 fraudulent insurance claims worth £1.2 billion in 2019, which is a 5% increase on the prior year.  This adds approximately £50 to innocent motorist’s premiums annually, which is something One Insurance feel passionately about preventing. 

Detailed surveillance footage demonstrated that not only were the injuries fabricated, but on two stark occasions showed Mr Beasley lifting bags of soil into the boot of his car and on another occasion taking the wheelchair from the boot of his car before opening it, sitting in it, putting his arm in a position to feign disability and then being pushed to a medical examination.

Mr Beasley’s claims were branded one of the most blatant and in passing judgment HHJ Godsmark QC said the case was so serious that an immediate custodial sentence of 6 months was warranted.  The Judge accepted that there had been a ‘campaign to deceive the medical experts’ and that unfortunately although he has seen a number of cases where Claimants’ have fabricated symptoms this was one of the most blatant.

Broughton continued ‘One Insurance takes fraud seriously and we do not tolerate dishonest or exaggerated claims.    We have today secured another successful finding of fundamental dishonesty, against a different Claimant who also thought nothing of misleading a medical expect to commit insurance fraud.  This along with the Mr Beasley case will hopefully send an important message to anyone considering exaggerating for personal gain.  One Insurance will not tolerate fraud on any level.’

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