[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]
	England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions >> Locke v Stuart & Anor [2011] EWHC 399 (QB) (25 February 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/399.html Cite as: [2011] EWHC 399 (QB)

[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
LIVERPOOL DISTRICT REGISTRY

		Liverpool Civil and Family Court Centre 35 Vernon Street Liverpool L2 2BX
		25th February 2011

Mr. Andrew Edis, Q.C.:

1. This is an action for damages following an alleged road traffic accident which is said to have occurred on 7^th February 2006. It is a claim for a very modest sum of general damages only. The Claimant told his doctor that he took 1 week off work, but there is no claim for any loss of earnings or any other financial loss. In evidence he said that he took a couple of weeks off and that he was working at that time "now and again" as a bricklayer but that he had decided not to bother claiming any damages for loss of earnings. He did not explain this generosity on his part to the insurers of the First Defendant. I assess general damages in the sum of £1,500 on the basis of the medical report of Dr. Arthur at page 119 of the Claimant's Trial Bundle (which I shall call Trial Bundle 1).
2. The hearing has occupied 3 days not including the day when this judgment is delivered, and the court has been provided with 2,911 pages of written material in 8 lever arch files as follows:-

i) Trial Bundle 1, prepared by the Claimant's Solicitors.

ii) The Second Defendant's Supplementary Bundle of Documents, which I shall call Trial Bundle 2.

iii) Three Lever Arch Files of exhibits to the statements of Mr. Stuart Smith, the solicitor for the Second Defendant. Those statements are in Trial Bundle 2 at pages 282-352. The exhibits comprise the documents relating to the investigation into 9 accidents, including the one with which I am concerned. They are designated Accidents A-I on an A3 chart prepared by Mr. Smith which is designed to illustrate the Second Defendant's case. The accident with which I am concerned is Accident G on that list. The 3 files are arranged so that the sets of documents appear in alphabetical order by the letter assigned to the relevant accident. I have only looked at the documents in these files to which I have been referred, which is a very small proportion of the total.

iv) 3 lever arch files of Facebook searches carried out by the solicitors or agents of the Second Defendant to determine what links between people may be shown by their lists of friends on their publicly available Facebook pages. These searches were done in respect of 28 people in November 2008, April 2009, January 2010, February 2010, and September 2010 (Facebook Bundles 1 and 2) and repeated more recently in respect of a small selection of those individuals (Facebook Bundle 3). I shall call these FB/1, FB/2 and FB/3. Those searches could not be repeated recently in respect of some of the key characters in this case because the privacy settings on Facebook had been changed. Jaimes Locke, the Claimant's brother, told me that he had done this because of a problem with a girlfriend, and not to avoid further scrutiny by the Second Defendant.

v) In addition, I have lengthy skeleton arguments and further documents attached to that of the Claimant.

3. On the face of it, a disproportionate amount of time has been used on this claim. As will appear below, I do not think that this appearance reflects the reality. Although I will conclude this judgment with some observations about the volume of paper which has been provided and some case management suggestions prompted by my experience of trying this case, the substantive issues involved are of some importance. The present claim is in fact the sole survivor of a series of 9 claims which were investigated as a group by the Second Defendant and which the Second Defendant proposed should be managed and heard together. Some orders were made designed to give effect to this aim, but in the result one claim was settled by Equity Red Star (Accident I), and all the others were withdrawn save this one. Some claimants involved in some accidents were paid out "before the penny dropped" as Mr. Higgins put it in submissions, but after the Second Defendant took its hard line in defending this claim (among the others) by alleging a substantial fraudulent conspiracy, only this Claimant has persisted in his attempt to recover his damages.

Summary of Claim

4. The claim is brought by Mr. Daniel Locke who alleges that he sustained minor injuries when he was the front seat passenger in the car of his brother, Jaimes Locke, when it was involved in a road traffic accident in Station Road, Wallasey, at about 8.00pm on Thursday the 7^th December 2006. He alleges that the accident was entirely the fault of the driver of the other car involved, James Stuart. He says that his brother was driving his Vauxhall Astra along Station Road, when James Stuart drove a vehicle from Willoughby Road into collision with it. Willoughby Road is clearly the minor road, and there are road markings indicating as much. Therefore, if what Mr. Locke says is true he is plainly right and entitled to recover his damages. The First Defendant has not appeared at the trial. The Second Defendant is the insurer of the First Defendant and has become a party in order to protect its interests. It alleges that the Claimant has lied about the accident. It claims that this is one of a number of similarly contrived accidents in which two cars are brought into collision deliberately so that claims for damages for personal injury can be made against the driver of one of them by the passengers of both cars (or by those who claim to have been passengers) and by the driver of the allegedly innocent vehicle. It points to a number of common features to these accidents, and also to a number of respects in which the evidence given by the Claimant is demonstrably untrue. The Claimant was supported in evidence by his brother, Jaimes Locke the "innocent" driver, and his mother who dealt with an alleged telephone call and who was also a passenger in one of the other impugned road traffic accidents said to be a further example of a fraudulent claim involving some personnel common to the fraudulent series of claims represented by Accidents A-I. The Second Defendant says that they too have told lies.
5. It is because of the elaborate nature of the Second Defendant's case that the quantity of paper is so large. I think that steps could have been taken to reduce the amount of paper when the other claims were withdrawn or settled, because this single claim has required a far narrower focus than the initially contemplated trial would have done. However, the Second Defendant still wished to demonstrate the system of which this particular accident is said to be part. It is because of the potential consequences of a finding against the Claimant in this case, as well as because of its complexity, that District Judge Henthorn, a very experienced District Judge, transferred this case with others to the High Court by his Order of the 24^th May 2010. Clearly, the Second Defendant has expended considerable investigative resources on its attempt to uncover and prove a fraudulent scheme and if that effort succeeds in avoiding liability in this case, it may be expected that there will be ramifications for other cases both within this allegedly fraudulent series of claims and beyond. Moreover, the evidence in this case has revealed publicly the scale of the inducement offered by the practice of referral fees to the promotion of false claims. I heard from Gina Simpson, the solicitor acting for the claimant in this case, that her firm paid a fee of £450 in respect of every Claimant whose case was referred to her, and which she decided to accept on a Conditional Fee Agreement. One of the accidents which I have been asked to look at, not that alleged by the Claimant, involved a minibus and a total of 19 people were to claim damages as a result of the accident (Accident A). This may therefore have earned the referrer £8,550. I make it clear at once that no-one has alleged any impropriety against Ms. Simpson. She gave impressive and sensible evidence before me about her practice which is lawful and so far as I am aware properly conducted according to professional standards. There is a degree of regulation of the practice of referral fees by the Ministry of Justice and by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. I understand that there has been more guidance published since the period with which I have to deal, namely 2005-2007 and December 2006 in particular. Ms. Simpson told me that this has made it easier for solicitors to spot problems at an early stage. The way this works in practice is a matter of importance and it is appropriate that my findings should be recorded in a judgment of the High Court. I do not comment on the situation either then or now, but simply record these findings as revealed by the evidence in this case. It will be for others to take any action which appears to them to be necessary.

The Law

6. At the outset of the trial, it appeared that there might be two issues of law which required consideration. In the result they have not arisen. These were:-

i) The Claimant relies upon a judgment given after a trial in the action brought by Jaimes Locke as a result of the same accident with which I am concerned. Mr. Jaimes Locke succeeded in proving that the accident occurred as he alleged, and he recovered damages which have been paid to him. It is argued that this creates either a bar of res judicata or at least issue estoppel to prevent the Second Defendant from re-opening the question of negligence, and the factual issue of whether the accident occurred. Mr. Kidd has, however, accepted that if the Second Defendant can show in these proceedings that the earlier judgment was obtained by fraud, and that it is therefore liable to be set aside, then he cannot rely on it. At one stage, the Second Defendant was inclined to rely on the result of an unsuccessful attempt by the Claimant within these proceedings to strike the Defence out as an abuse of the process of the court because of the res judicata or issue estoppel defence as determining that issue against the Claimant. The result of that argument, if it succeeded would only be to open up a possibility that I might reject the claim, without finding fraud, on the basis simply that the Claimant has failed to discharge the burden of proof in showing that he sustained injuries in a road traffic accident for which the First Defendant was liable. On one view of the facts of this case that is not a likely outcome. Either the Claimant has proved his case, because I believe him and his witnesses, or the Second Defendant has shown that his evidence, and that of his witnesses, is dishonest and that therefore the allegation that this was a contrived accident is proved. It was therefore agreed that this issue would only be argued if I made factual findings which meant that it arose. As will appear below, my findings render that legal argument unnecessary and I have not heard it, or resolved it. Mr. Kidd did seek to place some reliance on the decision of District Judge Wallace on 18^th September 2008 (Trial Bundle 1 page 125) in his closing submissions. This was essentially an attempt to seek evidential support from it for his case rather than to ascribe any legal status to it. It was suggested that since District Judge Wallace had believed Jaimes Locke and Anthony Fogg I should attach greater weight to the evidence of Jaimes Locke from whom I have heard in this case. I have not heard from Anthony Fogg, although it emerged in the evidence of Jaimes Locke that he is still in touch with him and he had recently asked him to be a witness. He told me that Mr. Fogg was not available on the Wednesday of the Trial but might be available later in the week. He did not appear. Given that I do not know what evidence was before District Judge Wallace or what challenges to the evidence of Jaimes Locke and Anthony Fogg he was asked to assess, I derive no assistance from his conclusions. I do not actually have a transcript of his judgment on liability, although I do have one of his findings on quantum.

ii) The second issue was one which troubled only me, namely the extent of the Second Defendant's liability to meet the Claimant's claim if the First Defendant did not contest his own liability. No Defence has been filed by James Stuart who has not appeared at this trial. However, no judgment has been entered against him in default, and it is agreed that if the Second Defendant's factual case succeeds then there should be no judgment against the First Defendant in these proceedings and the Second Defendant will not be liable to the Claimant.

7. This, therefore, is simply an issue of fact.

The Accident

8. The Claimant and his brother give evidence of the happening of an accident on 7^th December 2006 when they say that Jaimes Locke was driving his Vauxhall Astra along Station Road. He was intending to turn right into Willoughby Road in order to drop off Tony Fogg, a rear seat passenger, who lived there. The Claimant told me that he had been drinking and was not really taking much notice of what was happening, and that the first he knew of the accident was when a car struck the Astra in the side, coming from the left, or nearside, of the Astra. He was unable to identify the point of impact, or to tell me anything else about the accident except (eventually) that he was flung forward, restrained by the seat belt but struck his hand on the windscreen. Jaimes Locke said that he had not been drinking, and was looking for Willoughby Road, but failed to recognise it, so that he drove slightly past the point where he should have started to turn. Willoughby Road runs across Station Road to the left and to the right at this 4 way junction, and is the minor road. He was going slowly, he thought 10-15mph, when the other vehicle came from Willoughby Road on his left and into collision with his Astra, striking it at the pillar between the front and rear doors on the nearside. The dent at that point was the only damage which he recalled. The vehicles came almost immediately to a stop (within about 1 metre of the point of impact) and he alone got out of the car, having quickly satisfied himself that none of his 4 passengers was injured. He did not recognise the other driver, they quickly exchanged details and he then drove back to 19 Harvey Road, his family home, from which they had just come.
9. If that evidence is true, the claim succeeds. The Second Defendant mounts essentially a two pronged attack on it.

i) A series of points is made about the factual account of the accident itself which, it is said, render the evidence highly implausible.

ii) The Second Defendant then relies upon a series of connections between the people involved in this accident and those involved in other suspiciously similar accidents occurring in the Wirral area in 2005-2007. It is said that these connections cannot plausibly be the result of the chance happening of accidents, and can only be explained by a conspiracy to manufacture accidents for financial gain. I include in this category of evidence, the suggestion that Jaimes Locke gave some false evidence designed to enhance his claim for damages in his own action, because if true that would tend to support the suggestion that the claim itself was manufactured. It would clearly not prove it, because dishonest exaggeration is a fact encountered in genuine claims as well as manufactured ones. It would, however, lend support to the Second Defendant's other evidence on this issue. It was for this reason that I rejected a submission made in the course of evidence that this issue was a collateral one, and that the evidence went to credit only. It was suggested by Mr. Kidd that the answers given by Jaimes Locke were therefore final, and evidence to disprove them was inadmissible and evidence to support them unnecessary. The distinction between an issue which is collateral for these purposes and one which has to do with the facts of the case is a flexible one to be judged according to the particular facts and issues. On the facts of this case, I considered that this evidence was capable to going to the central issue of the motivation of the claims made after the alleged accident of 7^th December 2006: was it to make a financial gain, or to recover compensation for a loss genuinely suffered? I gave an ex tempore ruling on the subject in essentially these terms.

The Burden and Standard of Proof

10. In approaching these questions of fact, I do so on the basis that because the reality of this case is that the Second Defendant has pleaded dishonesty against the Claimant, the burden is on it to prove it. The standard of proof is the civil one, the balance of probabilities, and I have reminded myself of the decision of the Court of Appeal in R (N) v. Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) and others [2006] QB 468, and the authorities cited in Markel International Insurance Company Limited v. Higgins [2009] EWCA Civ 790, at paragraph 50. I therefore approach this case on the basis that the allegations made by the Second Defendant are serious, as are the consequences of those allegations, and therefore strong and cogent evidence is required to prove them on the balance of probabilities.

The Scope of the Findings

11. I also bear in mind the fact that this is not an action for damages for fraud against, in particular, Will Jenkins, Adrian Brown, James Stuart or Rebecca Locke. James Stuart is a party to these proceedings but has not attended. That was his choice and any findings I make bind him. Mr. Jenkins and the others I have just named are not parties to these proceedings. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Brown (trading as "AW Claims") were the referrers of the claims who introduced the claims arising out of this accident to Gina Simpson or Aegis Law who now acts for the Claimant. They also referred Accidents A, B, C, D, E, F, and H and Mr. Brown was the "guilty driver" in Accident I. I have not heard from them in evidence. Ms. Simpson told me that she has not heard from Mr. Jenkins since the Summer of 2007 and that she now does not trust Mr. Brown because of his behaviour as the tenant of a property which she owns. I am restricted to making findings on the evidence before me for the purposes of this action. Messrs. Jenkins and Brown have not answered the allegation that they were the orchestrators of this criminal conspiracy and I can and do make no finding which is binding against them. Those who read this judgment must understand that limitation. This applies to other named parties as well including Rebecca Locke who claimed to be a passenger in the present accident and recovered damages as such. She has not been called as a witness, and I was told by Daniel and Jaimes Locke that this is because she is estranged from the family because she now lives in Liverpool with a controlling boyfriend with whom they do not get on. I was told by Jaimes Locke that her Christmas presents were still in the back room of the family home in Wallasey and that that should tell me all I need to know about the state of that relationship. However, witness statements were exchanged in this case in November 2009. In January 2010 after Jaimes's 30^th birthday party Rebecca posted in Facebook that she wished to extend her thanks to her family for a great night, and she also describes her mother as the "best mum in the world." I reject that explanation of her absence as untrue. I do not rule out the possibility that there may be some difficulties in the relationship, and I know that she was living in Liverpool on 24^th August 2007 because she gave an address in Liverpool when she claimed to have been injured as one of 16 passengers in a minibus on that day. However, it is beyond belief that the relationship is so fractured, and has been since before November 2009, that no witness statement supporting her brothers (and herself) has ever been obtained from her. Daniel Locke said in his witness statement at Trial Bundle 1 page 59, paragraph 14 that he had no knowledge of Rebecca being involved in a crash on 24^th August 2007. He did not say that communication was impossible because of the breakdown of their relationship. He said

"I do not see Rebecca very often nowadays as she lives in Liverpool, and does not come over to see us much. I have not therefore had an opportunity yet to ask her about this accident, but I will ask her when I see her."

He told me in evidence that he had seen her since, but had not asked her about that collision because it is not the kind of thing you discuss when you do not see each other very often. Some level of optimism about the relationship must have prompted the purchase of the Christmas presents which now apparently languish unwanted in Wallasey. I am therefore satisfied that Rebecca Locke has not appeared as a witness in these proceedings because she does not want to, or because a decision has been made that she would not assist. I do not speculate about what she might have said if here, but do conclude that I have been deliberately misled by Daniel and Jaimes Locke about the reason for her absence.

The Second Defendant's Case About the Evidence of the Accident Itself

12. The points made by the Second Defendant arising from the account of the accident itself are as follows:-

i) Both Daniel and Jaimes Locke are very vague on detail. There is a good deal that they cannot remember. Each witness answered this attack by saying that the accident occurred over 5 years ago. In fact it was just over 4 years, but it is still a long time ago. They have both been in other accidents before or since. This is a valid point, but I was struck by the failure of the Claimant to give me any impression of any real memory of the event at all. I would not expect him to remember everything, but I would expect him to remember something. The only detail which he gave me was the account of his hand striking the windscreen as he was thrown forward. Even this, however, was prompted from him by the putting of his witness statement. The medical report of Dr. Arthur on which he relies in these proceedings does not mention any complaint of a hand injury, except that it records the note made by the Triage Nurse that there was such a complaint when the Claimant attended his GP on 11^th December 2006. This note said that his "right hand hit window and smashed glass during impact." This did appear in his witness statement made at some date prior to November 2009 (Trial Bundle 1 page 58 paragraph 6), but he failed to recollect it when asked open questions about the accident by Mr. Higgins in cross-examination, and, as I have mentioned, when he spoke to Dr. Arthur for his medico-legal report on 20^th March 2007 (Trial Bundle 1 page 119). This seems to me to be something which is memorable and, if true, likely to be accurately and consistently recalled even after a long period of time. I therefore find that it is not true and therefore conclude that Mr. Daniel Locke was misstating the consequences of the alleged accident as early as 11^th December 2006 when he first sought medical assistance. He did that at the same place, and on the same day as his brother Jaimes Locke, who also misled the doctor as I find below. This concerted dishonesty at an early stage is highly significant. There has been good reason to think about this accident throughout this period, because the claims were first intimated in December 2006 and have been hotly disputed since these proceedings were issued in October 2008. The lack of anything which appeared to be a genuine memory together with false claims as to the consequences prompts real doubt about the event itself.

ii) The reason why the car was travelling in that direction on that night containing those 5 passengers is said to be very unclear. The passengers are a somewhat disparate group in some respects. In addition to the two brothers in the front seat, there was Anthony Fogg, a friend of Jaimes Locke, Lynne Gregory the girlfriend of the father of Jaimes and Daniel Locke, and Rebecca Locke, their younger sister. There might be very good reasons why this group of 5 people might wish to travel together, but such reasons are not obvious from the evidence, and inconsistent accounts have been given. It is now said that there had been a get together at 19 Harvey Road at which there had been some drink, and at the end of it the group in car were going to get some food from Captain Tony's, a pizza restaurant nearby where one can get a takeaway pizza or where one can stay and eat one's pizza on site. It was quite unclear to me who wanted to eat, and who wanted to be dropped off without eating. I was told by Jaimes Locke that it was only Fogg who was to be dropped off before the pizza (he after all was the reason why the Astra was at the junction where the accident occurred, since he lives in Willoughby Road). Everyone else wanted a pizza. The Claimant told me that Rebecca was just coming along for the ride and it was only he who wanted the pizza, although Jaimes might have decided that he wanted one after the journey had started. The oral evidence was inconsistent with some of the contents of a letter written by the solicitors to the Claimant on this topic on 13^th February 2007 which is in Trial Bundle 1 at page 257. It was there stated on behalf of Jaimes Locke that

"...he was dropping off Ms. Gregory and Mr. Fogg at their home addresses following a social gathering at his home. Ms. Locke was being dropped off at her boyfriend's home and Jaimes Locke and Daniel Locke then went to Captain Tony's takeaway pizza for a pizza."

No-one was able to tell me who Rebecca's boyfriend was at this time or where he lived.

iii) The details of the get together prior to the accident were also very sparse, and not supplemented by any evidence from Dianne Locke who was called to give evidence, or by Rebecca Locke, Lynne Gregory, or Anthony Fogg who were not. It appears to have been spontaneous gathering, at which according to Daniel Locke food was available. Jaimes thought that there would have been food in the cupboard of the house, but could not say whether anyone ate any. After 4 years the details of all this might be expected to have become vague, but the desire for a pizza at 8.00pm is a little inconsistent with a social gathering with food ending at that time. More importantly, because young men do eat a lot, is the fact that the Locke brothers can remember that there was a plan to eat pizza that night, involving some at least of the group, but they are quite unclear about what type of party it was from which they had just come. In this context Daniel told me that Lynne Gregory (his father's girlfriend) got on well with his mother and would commonly go to her house without their father being present (he was not there that night). This must be so if she was present at a spontaneous gathering of family and friends, as was alleged. When pressed he could not remember any other occasion when this had happened, either before or after the night of the accident. Her presence in the car remains therefore inadequately explained. His demeanour while giving this evidence was particularly illustrative. He was plainly struggling to contrive answers to questions about something which must have been easy to deal with if he was trying to tell the truth. The general nature of his mother's relationship with her former husband's new partner is not something which is likely to be difficult to remember.

iv) I was told by both the Locke brothers that Tony Fogg was a close friend and that he lived quite close to them. It is a strange feature of the evidence therefore, that Jaimes Locke was unable to identify the road where Fogg lived in order to turn into it. He had, so it is said, driven past the point where he would have turn and was still proceeding directly ahead when struck from his left. If his purpose was really to drop Fogg off at his house, he should have been struck at the rear or the rear nearside as he was executing a turn, or perhaps not even been at a point where he was liable to be struck at all. This is common ground, and explained by Jaimes Locke as being due to his overshooting the junction (travelling at only 10-15mph) because he was not able to identify the road where his friend lived, although he was looking for it. This is an explanation which I find hard to accept.

13. I should now record my impression of the demeanour of the two principal witnesses for the Claimant, namely the Claimant himself and his brother Jaimes. The Claimant appeared to be rather less sophisticated and composed than his brother, and he appeared to me to be evasive and somewhat combative when asked a question which was problematic for him. His vagueness was the principal striking feature of his evidence. The manner of its presentation did not inspire confidence in the reliability of his evidence. Jaimes has served in the army and now operates as a self-employed insurance agent. He has been a very good footballer and played for several non-league semi-professional clubs. He was polite and well-presented. His demeanour did not affect my view of his evidence adversely, but there were certain objectively demonstrated problems in it, as I have mentioned above and as I will consider further below.

Conclusion So Far

14. These points, taken together, would cause me to doubt the account given of the accident but in the absence of other evidence I would not feel able to find as a positive fact that the accident had been entirely manufactured for financial gain. I find the account given of the events of that evening to explain the presence of these 5 occupants of the Astra and of the presence and position of the Astra at the accident location implausible and inconsistent. In the absence of any other explanation, I would feel bound to attribute some of that to the passage of time, and to the fact that Daniel had taken drink before the accident, perhaps in some quantity. I would, however, have taken into account the findings of dishonesty I have already made and held that, on the balance of probability, the Claimant had failed to prove his case. I would not have made the further positive finding sought by the Second Defendant that this was because he had been put up to participating in a fraud. The issue therefore is whether that further evidence enables me to make that further positive finding, namely fraud. In that context the findings I have made so far represent a sound platform on which the further evidence can build to support that further finding.

The Evidence of Systematic Fraud

15. The Second Defendant points to features of a series of accidents shown on an A3 chart as accidents A-I. I have listed the documentation which I have seen above. The accident which founds the present action is referred to on that chart as accident G. The common features are:-

i) The referral of the claims by either Mr. Will Jenkins or Mr. Adrian Brown (who also used other names), or both. I heard from Ms. Gina Simpson that at the material time they were trading together as "AW Claims" and made referrals to several panel solicitors including her firm, and Matrix. It also appears from the documents that the Price Partnership and Canter Levin & Berg also received instructions through them. No allegations of impropriety have been made against any of these solicitors before me, and the reason for mentioning them is that their use tends to support the proposition that AW Claims was the source of some of these referrals, and perhaps also of a considerable amount of other business.

ii) A pattern whereby the "guilty vehicle" has recently been taken on short term hire. It is then involved in an accident which is clearly 100% its fault. In the present case, the "guilty vehicle" was hired by James Stuart at about noon on the day of the accident and was due for return on 9^th December. He had paid an additional premium for collision damage waiver so that he was not liable to pay anything in the event of a crash. The total cost was very modest. Mr. Higgins put it graphically as a means of turning £50 into £50,000. This involves assumptions about the numbers involved in the accidents and the size of their claims. One of those assumptions is that no claim is likely to be of such a size that it justifies substantial investigation. It appears to be a happy fact, if true, that no-one was seriously injured in any of these accidents. The total cost to the insurers of meeting these claims, and the costs of the solicitors (on Conditional Fee Agreements with success fees) would be very substantial indeed.

iii) At the time of the accident both it and the other "innocent vehicle" should be full of people. Accident A involved a total of 20 people between the two vehicles, Accident B 9, Accident C 11, Accident D 10, Accident E 13, Accident F 10, Accident G 10, Accident H 11, and Accident I 8. This is a total of 106 people, of whom 9 were "guilty drivers", leaving 97 claimants worth a total of £40,500 in referral fees at £450 each. The overheads would be limited to the cost of short term hire of the guilty vehicle. This selection of claims contains two where the guilty vehicle was insured by Equity Red Star and 7 where it was insured by the Second Defendant. If the allegations are well founded, it is likely that there were other claims addressed to other insurers which I have not been told about. The size of the alleged fraud is very considerable. Mr. Smith told me in evidence that the cost of motor insurance fraud was estimated at £2 billion a year which he thought was probably an underestimate. This fraud was a small part (but not an insignificant part) of a much larger problem.

iv) These 9 accidents occurred in the Birkenhead area between 20^th October 2006 and 8^th April 2007. By the Birkenhead area I mean the conurbation which includes Birkenhead, Bebington, Tranmere, Rockferry, Moreton and Wallasey together with other places. It has a sizeable population, as Mr. Kidd has demonstrated by his researches, but it is not, geographically, very big.

v) There are links between persons who feature as drivers or passengers, sometimes because there are known relationships, common addresses, and sometimes because of Facebook research. This suggests a strikingly high level of accidental injury among a limited population of predominantly young people in the same geographical area. In this judgment I shall examine with some care the evidence suggesting links between Accident G and other accidents within the same pattern, and I will not burden it by setting out all of this class of evidence.

16. The evidence of Mr. Stuart Smith, a partner of Weightmans LLP was comprised in his witness statements at pages 282, 315, and 334 of the Second Defendant's Supplementary Bundle of documents and was confirmed by him in evidence. He also produced very voluminous exhibits and some newly printed documents relating to Jaimes Locke's football career at Runcorn Football Club. He was the author of the A3 chart which summarises the Second Defendant's case to which I have referred above. He was careful in his evidence not to become involved in making submissions from the witness box, as was appropriate. Mr. Kidd criticised him for his suggestions in his witness statement that various people or events were "linked", without accurately stating the limits of those links. I am not prepared to go so far as to accept that criticism, although I do consider that a professional witness, not unlike an expert, should draw attention to the weaknesses of his conclusions as well as their strengths in clear terms. This likely to lead to his evidence being agreed and to a great saving of costs and time. Many of those weaknesses are actually obvious and have been illustrated by Mr. Kidd forcefully in this trial, so no question arises of the court having been at any stage under any illusion.
17. I accept the evidence of Mr. Smith. It was given with care and he made sensible concessions about the limits of his knowledge. This means that I accept the evidence contained in his witness statements. I shall not set it all out. It is simply not possible to do so without rendering this judgment far too long (as perhaps it already is). I have read them twice with care and the material set out therein, properly understood, provides powerful support for the view that in 2005-2007 AW Claims were contriving accidents in the Wirral and referring the subsequent false claims to solicitors in return for referral fees. I make this finding without hesitation despite Mr. Kidd's able assault on the evidence. He pointed out that a self-selected group of claims with common features said to be suspicious is of doubtful statistical validity when the total number of claims referred by AW Claims is unknown and it is not known how common it was for them to refer accidents caused by the negligence of hirers of vehicles. Ms. Simpson's evidence was that they had contacts in the car hire trade, and that they would consequently pick up a high level of claims involving hire cars without any dishonesty at all. This approach is entirely proper but ultimately unpersuasive. Leaving Accident I aside, because it is atypical, and Accident G aside because it is the case I am to decide, I have evidence of 7 accidents involving the common features listed above. When challenged all claimants have withdrawn their claims. There is evidence of clear links in a number of cases between occupants of the two vehicles in the same accident. Accident A features two people who were partners (in the sense that they lived together but had different names) one in each vehicle. Accident B had 2 people who were associated with the same address, one in each car. One woman in the "innocent car" in Accident B was linked with the same address as one person in the "guilty minibus" in Accident A, and with the same address as two people in Accident C. Accident C includes 2 people who were involved in an accident on 9^th January 2005 with Mr. Adrian Brown, the partner of Will Jenkins. There appear to be 4 people called Martindale involved in Accidents C, D and E, one of whom is involved in both Accidents D and E. These three accidents occurred in February and March 2007. Either they are linked accidents in the sense alleged (bearing in mind the other common features) or that family succumbed to a level of accidental misfortune during those few weeks which strains credibility to credulity. I could continue to list all the common features, but it is not necessary. I accept the limits of Experian Searches and similar sources of information. Where "linked addresses" are relied upon, this information cannot do more than to show that at some time someone has applied for credit giving a particular name and address. Either the name or the address might be false. However, these links do not stand alone and the effect of the evidence is cumulative.
18. The general effect of the Facebook evidence also requires assessment in this context. It tends to support the proposition that these accidents formed a series of fraudulent conspiracies. Mr. Higgins produced 7 annotated charts for me during his closing submissions which summarise some, but not all, of the links. I bear in mind the limits of this kind of evidence which I deal with further below at paragraph 20(ii) when dealing with the evidence of Mr. Smith and his cross-examination by Mr. Kidd on the links between Accident G and the rest of the series of claims. However, the following facts nevertheless appear to me to have some importance:-

i) Paul Lister was at some stage a Facebook friend of Nathan McKinley, a passenger on James Stuart's car in Accident G. He was also a Facebook friend of Richard Hickman (Accident F), and Oswin Kavanagh-Jackson and John English (Accident C).

ii) Gary McGivney (Accident C) was a Facebook friend of 5 people involved in Accident F (3 in one car and 2 in another).

iii) Danny Batty (Accident F) was a Facebook friend of 2 people in the other car in hos won accident, and of 4 people in Accident C.

iv) Gemma Byrne (Accident F) was a Facebook friend of 2 people in the other car in her own accident, and 3 people in Accident C.

v) Johnny English (Accident C) was a Facebook friend of Jaimes Locke (Accident G). He is part of an interesting piece of evidence concerning "Will Jenkins Spain". In searches of Facebook in November 2008 this person, with a photograph, appeared as a Facebook friend of Johnny English and Nathan McKinley (FB/2, pages 390 and 416). In further recent searches of Facebook (22^nd February 2011 at FB/3 pages 26 and 70) entries appear showing that at that date "Spanish Will", with a photograph, was a Facebook friend of both Nathan McKinley Johnny English. This means that between these two searches these two men have retained Will Jenkins as a Facebook friend but that he now goes under a different name. I find that this is the Will Jenkins who was concerned in AW Claims because Jaimes Locke accepted that the later of the two photographs looks like the Will Jenkins he knew. Further, the first reference was to Will Jenkins by name, but to him as being connected with "Spain". Further, both English and McKinley are connected to the relevant Will Jenkins because he referred an accident in which they were claimants. Finally, the photographs appear similar, although this is not a factor carrying much weight because they are small and indistinct. All that can be said is that they might have excluded the connection by showing gross differences, but they do not. The link between Johnny English and Nathan McKinley is indirect, but the identical way in which the searches of their Facebook pages show the treatment of Will Jenkins is a link. That being so, Johnny English represents a link between an occupant of each car in Accident G. Jaimes Locke admits to knowing him (and he is a Facebook friend of Jaimes Locke: FB/2, page 521).

vi) Nathan McKinley, in addition to the link I have just dealt with, was also Facebook friends with 2 people in Accident C and 2 people (one in each car) in Accident F. He is also, as I have said, now a Facebook friend of Paul Lister, although he was not at the time of the first searches. He is, of course, an important person because he participated in Accident G.

19. Mr. Smith told me that there had not been any findings of fraud in relation to any of the accidents on the A3 chart, accidents A-I. Nevertheless, I find to the appropriate standard that there is very cogent evidence which proves on the balance of probabilities that there was a series of fraudulent accidents orchestrated by AW Claims in 2005-2007 and the issue is whether it can be shown that Accident G was part of that series.
20. Mr. Smith was asked in cross-examination about the 5 links shown in relation to accident G on the chart. He explained them as follows:-

i) The claim was referred by Jaimes Locke to Will Jenkins who referred it to Gina Simpson at Aegis Law Limited. Mr. Jaimes Locke accepted in evidence that he knew Mr. Jenkins before the accident on 7^th December 2006. He told me that he did a lot of networking and had been passed Mr. Jenkins' business card by someone and had also met him. This pre-accident connection is not made clear in Mr. Jaimes Locke's witness statement prepared for these proceedings at page 64 of the Trial Bundle 1, paragraph 10. I think that this is a legitimate criticism of the candour with which that statement was framed given that when it was made, Mr. Jaimes Locke knew that the Second Defendant was alleging that he had been procured as an "innocent driver" by Will Jenkins for the contrived accident which then followed. The probative value of the role of AW Claims as a common feature in these claims has been hotly contested by Mr. Kidd on behalf of the Claimant. However, I have already found that this is an important link because of their role in manufacturing accidents at or around the material time.

ii) Sean Robinson was with Daniel Locke when there was an accident in April 2007 which was quite genuine, but Sean Robinson is a Facebook friend of James Stuart, the "guilty" driver in the accident which founds the present claim, accident G. James Stuart's Facebook details are at Facebook Bundle 2 page 485. They show that he had 392 Facebook friends, which Mr. Smith accepted is rather a lot of people to have as close friends. The suggestion being explored was that at least some of these supposed relationships must be virtually non-existent. In response, he pointed out that this means that James Stuart has been invited to become a friend of these people and has accepted it. To that extent the fact that they are friends on Facebook does imply some level of relationship between him and them. This may be a very distant or virtually non-existent relationship, or, of course, it may imply a real friendship. Mr. Smith also dealt with the issue of "mutual friends". By this he means that, for example, Jamie Stuart had 39 friends named on his list of friends at the date of the search of his Facebook page in February 2010 who also featured in the Claimant's list of friends. He explained that where a person has a number of friends in common with another person, Facebook may generate a suggestion that each of them should add the other as a friend. This requires them to accept the suggestion. The point is made by Mr. Kidd that the absence of a person from a list of friends in such circumstances means that they must have decided not to add them. Therefore the suggestion that the large number of mutual friends means that they move in the same circle requires some qualification. It is nevertheless of some value. This link does therefore mean that the Claimant is a real friend of Sean Robinson (as well as a Facebook friend of Mr. Robinson) and that Mr. Robinson has a Facebook relationship with James Stuart, the First Defendant in this action.

iii) On 24^th August 2007 a collision allegedly occurred involving a minibus in which Rebecca Locke was a passenger, one of the passengers in the Astra and the sister of the Claimant. This led to 16 claims. I know nothing more about that claim than that, but the Second Defendant says that for her to be a passenger in two accidents in an 8 month period is such bad luck that I can take it into account as some support for her willingness to participate in a fraudulent scheme. I have already made findings about the false explanation for her absence from this trial but derive no further assistance from this "link" because I have no evidence at all to suggest that the August 2007 accident was anything other than entirely genuine. This is an illustration of the need for Insurers and those who advise them to advance allegations of fraud with care and based on evidence rather than assumption. The letters of claim relating to these 16 claims are in the bundle and I have in a public trial the names of all claimants and of the driver against whom the claims were made. If this claim was fraudulent all these people have committed a serious criminal offence. In my judgment, the suggestion that this might be so is unsupported by evidence and ought not to have been made in these proceedings.

iv) On 3^rd February 2009 a collision is alleged to have occurred between a car in which Daniel Locke, Dianne Locke and 3 others were travelling and a car driven by a Mr. John Davies. I was told by Dianne Locke that she did not think that this was a contrived accident. She did make a claim which was dealt with. This is the same John Davies who was in an accident in which he was a passenger in a car driven by Paul Richards on 31^st July 2006. On 19^th May 2005 an accident was said to have occurred involving 8 people including Simon Pennington (who was involved Accident B on 13^th January 2007), William Jenkins of 14 Causeway House, Wirral, and Paul Richards. The letters at Main Bundle page 296, and in the A-C Bundle pages 271 and 270 are relied upon to show that Simon Pennington was involved in this accident. There was clearly a degree of confusion when Direct Line reported the circumstances of that claim to AXA in correspondence, and the involvement of Simon Pennington does not appear from the letter of 14^th August 2008, but does appear from the other two letters. I accept Mr. Smith's explanation of this, namely that the letter of the 31^st December 2009 which appears to confirm Mr. Pennington's involvement in another accident altogether, namely Accident B, is an error and the letter is intended to refer to the accident about which he had asked, namely that of 19^th May 2005. Direct Line did not insure the guilty vehicle in Accident B and would not be in position to provide any information about it to AXA, who did. Therefore, the date given in that letter must be an error and this was confirmed by the final letter of 17^th January 2011. This means that Simon Pennington was involved in two accidents related to Will Jenkins (if the two references are to the same person). Mr. Paul Richards was also involved in two accidents, one involving Mr. Jenkins directly and the other involving Mr. John Davies, who was involved in an accident with Daniel Locke and his mother. Mr. Davies being a passenger in one accident and the "guilty driver" in another, and linked to Mr. Daniel Locke and his mother is a link on which the Second Defendant relies. Before I can rely on it, I need to be satisfied of three things:-

a) That Mr. Will Jenkins was involved in both the accidents of the 13^th January 2007 and the 7^th December 2006 as referrer and in the accident of 19^th May 2005 as a participant. The alternative theory, that there may be two men of the same name and age with the same contacts seems to me to be less probable than that it was the same man, and I so find. It is true that no link between Mr. Will Jenkins of AW Claims and the address in the Wirral has been identified, but on the balance of probability it seems to me that I can safely reject the possibility of unhappy coincidence.

b) That Simon Pennington was involved in accident B despite the first of the three letters from Direct Line. I have made my finding about this above: I find that on a proper reading of all 3 letters he was so involved.

c) That the collision of 3^rd February 2009 was a contrived accident. Of the people named in the chart, namely Mr. Daniel Locke, Mrs. Dianne Locke, and Mr. John Davies it is striking that both Mr. Daniel Locke and Mr. John Davies had been in accidents in 2006 involving Will Jenkins. Their links to that series of accidents and to Mr. Paul Richards do support the proposition that this accident in February 2009 was a contrived accident. I would not be prepared to make this finding if these links stood alone, but this allegation against Mr. Daniel Locke is part of a significant body of evidence against him (which includes his highly unsatisfactory account of the accident of 7^th December 2006) and I am prepared to take this link into account for the purpose suggested by the Second Defendant. There is a degree of circularity in this process of which I am aware and I do not attach a great deal of weight to this link. It does not follow that Mrs. Locke was inevitably aware of the fact that the accident in which she sustained minor injuries in February 2009 was contrived and I am not prepared to make that finding against her.

v) The fifth link is the crucial one. It is a link between Nathan McKinley and Jaimes and Daniel Locke, which, if true, means that two people in one car were known to one of those in other. This link is demonstrated in two ways. First, there is evidence that Daniel Locke admitted that he and his brother knew both Nick McKinley (who was in Accident F) and Nathan McKinley in a telephone conversation which took place on 22^nd December 2006. I shall make a specific finding about this below. Secondly, there are Facebook links between Nathan McKinley and Will Jenkins, Richard Hickman, and Paul Lister and the other further Facebook links which I have reviewed above.

The Telephone Conversation

21. On 22^nd December 2008 a telephone call was made from the office at Horley of Data Research Compliance Limited to 19 Harvey Road, the family home of the Locke family. It began at 11:03am and lasted 4 minutes and 24 seconds. The record from the telephone data for the company is at Trial Bundle 1 page 262. This much is common ground. The content of the telephone call is hotly disputed. On the one hand Miss Rebecca Hawley, an employee of the company told me that her witness statement dated 4^th March 2009 was true. It says, so far as relevant:-

"That I did, on 22^nd December 2008 at approximately 11.05 hours, place a pretext telephone call to Diane Locke, mother of James, Daniel and Rebecca Locke; passengers in the Claimant's vehicle. Mrs. Diane Locke resides at 19 Harvey Road, Wallasey CH45 5HP and her home telephone number is [number given]. I told Mrs. Locke that I was seeking a credit reference for Nathan McKinley , a passenger in the first Defendant's vehicle. Mrs. Locke readily told me that her son, James, knows Nathan McKinley. She passed the telephone to her son, Daniel, saying that he could assist me further. Daniel told me his brother, James, knows Nathan McKinley and Nathan's brother, Nick and that he has done so since he was at school. He said they had known each other for many years and James would willingly provide a credit reference for Nathan."

22. This evidence is supported by Darren Kirby, another employee of the same firm who says that the call was made at his request and in his presence. In oral evidence they both made it clear that the call was not directed initially to Mrs. Locke but to the house, and the conversation was with her because she answered the phone. Daniel and Dianne Locke both deny resolutely that any such call took place. They have no explanation of the fact that a call was made, but say that the allegation was not drawn to their attention for nearly a year after the call, so that they might not remember it. Jaimes Locke says that he does not know the McKinleys and could not have done so when he was at school because they are both much younger than he is and they went to different schools. They live about 3 miles apart.
23. There is no recording of the call, and the contemporaneous note which was said by Rebecca Hawley to have been made has not survived. She said she made a note, gave it to Mr. Kirby and saw it again when she made her statement in March 2009, 3 months or so after the call. She also says that she remembers the call because it was quite an unusual thing for her to be asked to do. Mr. Kirby says that he destroyed the note after its contents were recorded in Miss Hawley's witness statement. He says that this is the practice in this company, which is followed in all cases. He says that he reported the call in a Report to client (privilege in which has not been waived) and was then asked for a statement confirming it. This resulted in the witness statement of Rebecca Hawley. When it became clear on exchange of witness statements that the call and its contents were in dispute, he obtained the call record to which I have referred and made his own statement about it. This is word for word the same as the passage from the March 2009 statement I have set out, and was clearly copied from it. I do not think that his corroboration of that account adds any weight to it.
24. Rebecca Hawley was an impressive witness. She no longer works for the company and says (apparently correctly) that she has no reason to lie. She also says that this call was made on a case about which she knew nothing and which was not one of her cases. She therefore had no real motive to lie at the time either. Further, it is obvious that there must have been a note because in her statement, made without the benefit of the call record, the time of the call is accurately given. Finally, there is no doubt at all that there was a call and one of a suitable length to contain the conversation summarised in her statement. If it was not as described by Rebecca Hawley, I have no evidence at all about what it was about. Plainly it must have been an investigative call of some kind because it was made in the course of the work of a private investigator.
25. I entirely accept that it is a peculiar feature of the case that Daniel Locke apparently claimed that Jaimes had known the McKinleys since school when this does not make sense. It may have been intended to encourage the caller to believe that a good and reliable reference would be forthcoming from Jaimes in order to help Nathan McKinley. Daniel, unemployed or casually employed, could not perhaps himself give a credit reference but he may still have wanted to help Nathan McKinley by exaggerating Jaimes's relationship with him. That seems to me to be the most plausible explanation of the conversation although it is still not entirely satisfactory. In the end, I believe Rebecca Hawley and disbelieve all three members of the Locke family who, I find, have lied to me on this issue.
26. I therefore find that Jaimes Locke and Daniel Locke both knew Nathan McKinley who was a passenger in the other car in Accident G and that they have lied to conceal this fact. This strongly supports the inference that this was a staged accident.
27. Further, in an effort to explain why he has 38 mutual friends on Facebook in common with James Stuart (the other driver in Accident G and the First Defendant), Daniel Locke explained in his witness statement of 15^th October 2010 (for the first time) that he had been at school with him. In fact all of these 38 people are people that Daniel knows from the Wallasey area or from school. Whatever theoretical possibilities there may be about Facebook friends not being real friends, these at least were real relationships. This does suggest that James Stuart and Daniel Locke move in the same social circles, although the fact that they are not themselves Facebook friends of each other may be more significant, as Mr. Kidd submits. In this case the first searches were done in November 2008, two years after the accident. It would not require much sophistication for fraudsters to remove the names of their partners in crime from their Facebook pages. The scheme I have found to have existed was quite complex and sophisticated and it would not surprise me if this was part of it. It would certainly be quite stupid to accept an invitation to add on a publicly available Facebook page, someone whom you were expecting to have to deny knowing. At all events, the evidence of Mr. Daniel Locke was that although they were at school together (presumably for some years) they did not know each other. He told me that he only discovered that the "other driver" had been in the same year as him at school when he asked Alex Bree, one of the mutual friends, about him. In his witness statement he did not include that detail simply saying that he was told that "Jamie Stuart went to our school". I reject this evidence. I find that Daniel Locke has been driven to volunteer an explanation for the friends in common between him and James Stuart and this caused him to make the admission that they were at the same school. When the dates of birth were obtained and they were found to match within a month or so, it became obvious that they were in fact in the same year. Therefore, Mr. Daniel Locke was in a collision caused by the negligence of someone he was at school with, but failed to reveal the fact at all until January 2010 and even then failed to include in the witness statement the telling fact that the two men not only went to the same school, but that they were in the same year. This justifies the further finding of dishonesty which I make against Mr. Daniel Locke.

Jaimes Locke's Football

28. This issue occupied some time in evidence but can be dealt with quite shortly. Mr. Jaimes Locke failed to tell the Triage Nurse or GP on 11^th December 2006 that he had played football on the 9^th December 2006 and scored a hat trick. He did not tell Dr. Arthur this either, when he went for his medico-legal report in his own action. He told him that he did not play football for 2-3 weeks. He did not tell District Judge Wallace this either, at the trial of his action when he gave evidence on oath. He claimed then, in his witness statement, to have been unable to train or play football for 2-3 months. The Judge rejected this and found that he had been unable to play football for 2-3 weeks only. In fact the truth was that he had played football on the 2^nd day following the accident. This was discovered shortly before the trial by the internet research of the Second Defendant. This means that on the 11^th December 2006 Jaimes Locke had already decided to conceal an important fact from his GP. I have already found that on the same day and at the same place Daniel Locke invented the breaking of the windscreen and the consequential hand injury about which he had forgotten when he went for his medico-legal report and gave his evidence.
29. I do not derive any further assistance from the evidence about the truth or otherwise of paragraph 43 of the witness statement of Jaimes Locke in his own action (Trial Bundle 1 page 228). Whether it was strictly true to say that he was "under contract to play semi-professional football at Runcorn FC" is not something which I find necessary to resolve. He was, it would appear, registered to play for Runcorn at this time, although he does not appear actually to have played at all in the season 2006/07.
30. It is enough if I say that I accept that a footballer may play, as Mr. Jaimes Locke put it, "through the pain barrier for my team in a cup game". He may find this easier to do in a game which is at a lower standard than he is accustomed to, as was the case here. What I cannot accept is that he acted honestly in failing to reveal the fact that he played on that Sunday, and in fact actively concealed it, when

i) Attending the GP on 11^th December.

ii) Attending Dr. Arthur for his medico-legal report on 20^th March 2007.

iii) Preparing paragraph 44 of his witness statement of 17^th June 2008.

iv) Giving evidence on oath to District Judge Wallace on 18^th September 2008.

31. Although dishonest exaggeration of a claim is a feature encountered in genuine claims, its presence so soon after the accident when both brothers attended the GP on 11^th December 2006 shows that they were not there simply seeking medical assistance but already seeking to improve their claims by dishonesty. This supports the assertion (abundantly supported by other evidence recorded above) that this "accident" did not happen at all.

Result

32. Accordingly I dismiss this action. I find to the necessary standard that the Second Defendant has proved that this "accident" was not an accident at all but was manufactured in order to justify the making of the 9 claims for damages for personal injuries which it spawned, of which this is one. Accordingly there will be judgment for both Defendants against the Claimant. This is a curious result as far as the First Defendant is concerned because my finding involves a finding that he was complicit in this fraud. It is, however, proper.

Case Management

33. Far too much documentation has been placed before the court. There are extenuating circumstances in that this claim was once part of a series and the extensive documentation in the bundles may perhaps have been necessary to deal with all the claims. There was an opportunity to reduce the documentation, which was not taken.
34. It should be possible to prepare a document, based on the documentation including the witness statement of Mr. Smith and the 3 lever arch files of documents, together with the further 3 lever arch files of Facebook searches which accurately and fairly summarises their relevant contents so far as the primary facts are concerned. It can identify, in the manner of a Scott Schedule, which primary facts are in dispute so that the necessary material, and only the necessary material, can be adduced to deal with that. It may further also identify which inferences are agreed and which are not.
35. A document can easily be devised which sets out in a short form how entries on Facebook are created and what inferences may safely be drawn from them. This document, having been created, can be used in any case where this class of evidence is adduced. I think that a significant amount of time of the court was taken up in a debate about the strengths and weaknesses of Facebook evidence where really an agreement should be capable of being reached on this question.
36. The process of agreeing the primary facts and the proper limits of any inferences which they may justify will start with a statement such as that prepared by Mr. Smith in this case, and will be assisted if particular care is taken to include appropriate concessions as to the proper limits of any "link" contended for.
37. On 1^st September 2010 District Judge Coffey gave conventional directions for the compilation and lodging of an agreed trial bundle. It will appear from the above that this was not strictly complied with: each party lodged its own documents. This was the stage at which the parties should jointly have addressed the question of what documentation was really required to resolve this case.
38. I explored the question of confidentiality and the use of witness statements from one action in another action with Mr. Smith. He satisfied me that this was considered in the present case and that the relevant controls on the use of material were observed. I mention this because I regard this as an important feature in this type of case and would regard it as a serious matter if it were not properly attended to. This is related to paragraph 39 below.
39. Insurers making allegations of the kind which I have found proved in this case must do so with care. Their legal advisers have obligations which require them to advance such allegations only on proper grounds. I consider it to be inappropriate for trial bundles to contain the names and personal details of people with the suggestion that they have been guilty of fraud unless there are proper grounds evidentially for that assertion. I have found that this occurred in the case of an accident in August 2007 in Liverpool, and it may well be that it has happened in other cases too.
40. In making these observations I intend no criticism of any of the lawyers in this case. I am very grateful to both counsel for helping me with great skill through a factually complex case in a relatively short period of time. I have heard from both solicitors in evidence and accepted what they say without reservation. The documents, though too voluminous, have been properly prepared and it is quite plain that Mr. Smith in particular has done an enormous amount of work on this case with a great deal of care. The purpose of the inclusion of this section in this Judgment is to record my experience of trying this case in the hope that it may assist the case management and preparation of any further similar cases which may arise.