- 12 hours ago
Rogue Claimers - Season 2 Episode 6
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:06insurance fraud has reached epidemic levels in the UK it's costing us more
00:10than 1.3 billion pounds every year that's almost 3.6 million pounds every
00:16day deliberate crashes bogus personal injuries even phantom pets the fraudsters
00:25are risking more and more to make a quick killing and every year it's adding
00:29around 50 pounds to your insurance bill but insurers are fighting back exposing
00:34just under 15 fake claims every hour armed with the latest fraud busting
00:39technology subject out the vehicle including covert surveillance systems
00:44sophisticated data analysis techniques and specially trained fraud investigators
00:49oh they're catching these chances red-handed instead of getting away with
00:56it even more of these fraudsters are getting caught out
01:00this is road claimers
01:09today a serious cycling accident
01:13the injuries extended to a fractured knee and practice to the spine
01:17leaves the bus company with a potentially huge fair this crime could have been worth
01:22up to 35 000 pounds forensic engineers take a look at a bashed up scooter
01:29and are stumped the mileage had changed it had increased and when a rolex gets ruined
01:35it's no surprise the claimant has problems recalling his timing
01:55whether you're on two wheels or four our roads are shared by millions of us it doesn't matter if you're
02:01in a big
02:02bendy bus a 10-ton truck or on your bike
02:06mutual respect for other road users helps keep us all safe
02:12of course if you're on two wheels you're the most vulnerable
02:16especially when you have hgvs and buses to contend with
02:21and lee ingram from first group is no stranger to claims that coming from cyclists having had altercations
02:28with the buses from the fleet we received a report of a claim where they're gonna
02:32come in together of a bus and a cyclist on a shared bus and cycle lane
02:37normally when you've got a bus and the bike there's quite a weight difference so
02:42it's always something we need to investigate thoroughly because there's a
02:46very good likelihood of some quite serious injuries arising with your average bus
02:50weighing 12.6 tons it's the same as being hit by two elephants so it
02:55wouldn't be a case of a couple of cuts and bruises the injuries alleged by the
03:00cyclist extended to a fractured knee fractures to the spine and also some
03:06sort of psychological aspect or reaction to being involved in such a serious
03:11accident as you would expect at this stage we hadn't received any medical
03:15evidence to support any of these injuries but really we were going on what
03:18we've been told had happened and the cyclist account would hopefully shed some
03:23light on how he ended up in such a bad state he was cycling along the path he's
03:28gone down the drop curb into the cycle and bus lane he's been cycling along for a
03:33short while and a bus has come from behind him past him and as it's passing it's
03:38managed to strike his right shoulder and strike the side of his bike that kind of
03:44collision certainly explained the severe injuries and the financial damages for
03:48first group were looking pretty hefty too this claim could have been worth up to
03:54thirty five thousand pounds some quite serious breaks there he would have had a
03:59loss of earnings he reported that he'd been unable to work as a waiter for two
04:04months and his solicitors fees on top so not an insubstantial amount in this case
04:09we were faced with a situation where there wasn't a lot of other evidence we had the
04:12cyclist version before proceeding further lee now needed to hear from the driver the bus driver
04:20had alleged that he was traveling along in the shared bus and cycle lane he's seen a cyclist on the
04:26path to his left but he wasn't cycling in a manner that caused him any real concern and
04:31as the bus has passed him the cyclist has just come straight off the path into the side of the
04:35bus
04:35giving him no real chance to avoid him the driver's account didn't support the cyclist at all and there
04:43were a few other things that made lee think something was up the cyclist has contacted our
04:48customer support team he's advised that this is quite a serious incident he's been involved in
04:55it's causing some financial stress he's phoned customer services on four separate occasions so he's quite
05:00desperate to make sure that he gets his point across one reports normally enough and so yeah he's quite
05:07persistent um other than that though there's nothing to suggest that this is a chap that's not been
05:14involved in a really serious incident that could have really affected his life at this stage all he
05:22really had was two conflicting stories should it go to trial a judge is gonna have to make a decision
05:28as
05:28to which version is more plausible fortunately most of our buses are fit with cctv cameras and we've
05:36got that evidence and that is the best evidence we could have being completely impartial the cctv could
05:43act as a digital judge and there were plenty of angles to choose from we're either going to see the
05:51cyclist traveling along in the road the bus clipping as he passes or him just flying off the path into
05:58the
05:58side of the bus and as we let it roll you can see that the bike is on the path
06:03the bus is just coming up to
06:05pass him and as he does so no look over his shoulder smack into the side of the bus no
06:13reason for our bus driver to be
06:14concerned and as the bus is passing him just straight off into the side of the bus he hasn't even
06:20looked over his
06:21shoulder which if you're going to go into a lane being used by bikes and buses surely you would look
06:27first and actually there's not a bus to your right wham accident happens there's not a lot you can do
06:33to avoid that
06:36in this case the cctv footage fully supported what our driver was saying
06:49we sent the cctv evidence onto the client solicitors um pointing out to them that there was no way our
06:57bus driver could have
06:58avoided that client he didn't have a chance the allegations of negligence that they've made they simply weren't founded and
07:05we weren't going to pay the claim
07:06so the claim was dropped and first group never heard from them again this guy is alleged to have
07:13sustained a fractured knee and a fractured back and yet he refuses any medical assistance at the scene of
07:20the event and just cycles off like some two-wheel terminator we didn't end up paying out on this claim
07:26and quite right too apart from the fabricated circumstances he's alleged that he's gone to a
07:32walk-in centre if I had a fractured back and a fractured knee I wouldn't be walking anywhere I might
07:37try and find the nearest
07:38crawling centre
07:45later a cheat unwittingly alerts insurers that he's in cahoots with a cohort in a laptop scan
07:53so from the information we were provided with suggested that the customers were collaborating and using the same version of
08:01events to potentially make another claim
08:10sometimes people can be just plain unlucky and if you're a clumsy type then insurance is definitely for you
08:17especially if you're into designer items
08:21because if you lose your louis vuitton or ruin your rolex replacing or repairing it can seriously break the bank
08:30however it's crucial that a policy is in place before the need to make a claim arises as trying to
08:37claim on one set up retrospectively is fraud
08:42to get to the bottom of suspicious claims insurers call on expert companies like icog who have unique
08:49techniques to separate the genuine claims from the bogus ones
08:55when we're talking to policyholders we're not just listening to to what they're saying we're
09:01listening to what potentially they're not saying but also how they're behaving and saying things on the
09:06call the inability to recall sort of what we call sensory details so if they weren't there they
09:12wouldn't know certain things at sounds sites even smell in some cases when a case came in that was
09:20concerning the insurer they sent it over to liz this claim was essentially just for a damage to a rolex
09:26watch but the reason it came to us was due to the fact that it would happen not long after
09:32the policy
09:33had been set up two weeks after his insurance was in place the claimant had an incident he damaged the
09:40watch by dropping it when he was getting out of his locker after a session at the gym he was
09:46claiming
09:46for watch repairs the rolex needed a new glass face and a full service to remove tiny bits of broken
09:52glass
09:53which had got into the mechanism when the watch smashed the value of the claim would only have been
09:59around 600 pounds on the face of it this looked to be a relatively straightforward claim so liz called
10:08the claimant to find out more details so nice and slow clear for me tell me exactly what's happened
10:15okay so i was in the gym it wasn't a home and i dropped it getting changed took it out
10:19the locker
10:20that's the marble slates or something hard floor and the watch face shattered so i took it into the
10:27repairers all right so um can you confirm when this happened um i'm hoping you'd tell me that i i
10:37did
10:37it's um i i i informed the when i make reports of the claim i informed it pretty well accurately
10:45but i don't recall what date whatever that date was i mean it was i don't know it was about
10:51three
10:51weeks ago four weeks ago something like that but it's all um right so um can you actually see
10:57it's just your recollection um that i'm trying to to get to and then it was a thursday or a
11:06friday
11:17um not the clearest of accounts liz was starting to worry he did start displaying various what i
11:30call behavioral indicators that he was under pressure and possibly not in control of the
11:35facts and figures but as soon as i asked him um any specific dates and times started gabbling and
11:42was unable to to give me a definitive answer okay so um so when did you take the watch to
11:49to the jewelers
11:52um sometime the following week okay um do you tell me roughly what day that was
11:59uh
12:01no i'll be hesitant to see that i mean i'm not sure any idea what day of the week that
12:06would be
12:09uh uh well i think it was the early early following i couldn't remember i don't i doubt it was
12:15a
12:15month day it must be the tuesday wednesday and i yeah i i really don't actually know
12:21so you're not too sure of the date although you think it was a thursday or friday and you said
12:27about
12:27three weeks ago uh yeah i i mean i'm happy whatever i i know that i was clear closer to
12:35the time and when
12:36i filled out the form okay so you're happy that whatever date you put on the form was the date
12:41that
12:42that had happened yeah
12:45he had filled in the form only weeks earlier so the fact he couldn't remember it happened on the 29th
12:51of
12:51march or that he went into a jeweler on the 3rd of april was only the first of liz's concerns
12:58the policy holder had submitted the screenshot of a quote to have the watch prepared the only thing
13:05that was slightly off about this evidence was the screenshots was obviously of um an email which
13:10had already been forwarded because there was a line down the left-hand side but also there was no
13:16date obvious on the screenshot liz got in touch with the jewelers when i spoke to the jeweler they
13:22were very happy to to help out and they confirmed that the actual quote had been obtained about five
13:29months previous to this claim being made the claimant said the watch had broken in 2019 on the 29th of
13:37march and he had received a quote from the jewelers on the 3rd of april the jeweler's dates were completely
13:45different saying the first quote had been sent out the previous year in 2018 on the 6th of december
13:54and followed it up 11 days later further contact was made with him in 2019 sending a second reminder
14:02on the 16th of march interestingly two days after receiving the second reminder the claimant set up a
14:10policy 11 days later the rolex is broken any insurance will cover you from the date that you
14:19take out your policy however it doesn't cover you for things that have happened before you take the
14:24policy out armed with this new timeline liz wanted to see how the claimant would respond
14:30but i want to put one question to you if i were to go and check with the jewelers regarding
14:36when they
14:36quoted you what would they tell me um sorry how can you if i was to go back to the
14:44jewelers and say when
14:45was that quote done what date would they tell me the quote was done well i could forward it to
14:52you
14:52if you like it was sent on an email so i um i just took a screenshot off my iphone
14:58and saved it to
14:58images it is actually dated okay so what what date was that i can see from the subject matter
15:06so that quote was done the third of april okay um well i need to be perfectly honest with you
15:15i've
15:15actually spoken to the jewelers this morning when i gave them your quotes um number for the repair
15:21they've told me that that um quote was um initially done on the 6th of december 2018
15:28and then further to that timeline they sent out an email to you on the 17th of december
15:35and then chased it up again on the 16th of march no but that was for something completely separate
15:41uh nothing to do with this right so although i gave them the reference 5270 which you've kindly
15:48provided to us the lane went and double-checked dates and said it's the 6th of december but that
15:54was that wouldn't be the breakage of the glass so this says rolex steel sub-mariner date watch
16:00black dial black insert and sapphire crystal broken fragments inside i've i hadn't damaged the bezel
16:08uh and before then but that was that's what they were looking for then but this quote reference number
16:14of 5270 relates to the broken glass i don't know if that's a current reference or something i mean i
16:21i don't quite know how i go forward something i think i need to speak to them um i'm confused
16:29had there been a mix-up list couldn't be sure
16:34all i could do was explain that if he needed his or wanted his claim to continue that he would
16:40have to
16:40supply me with irreputable evidence that what i had in front of me wasn't accurate
16:46and i would need a you know a full and detailed explanation as to to what those dates actually
16:51have referred to because literally the one that i've got here refers back to the broken glass on the
16:586th of december i need to be perfectly honest with you as things stand at best um this would be
17:05um
17:05a declinature of the the claim and quite possibly um because obviously it does appear as if this
17:13happened well before you actually took out the policy in march then they may um invoke the fraud
17:21condition and void your policy so that's how serious this is at the moment so how would you like to
17:27proceed
17:28i think i need to speak to them actually in the first place so um that's what i want to
17:34do
17:37he must have moved pretty sharpish as within 24 hours he called liz back she was expecting him to
17:45have information about his conversation with the jewelers instead the call took a very different turn
18:07so i'm going to have to go back to work because what's actually happened is that one of my boys
18:20is broken it's frustrating also because of the insurance in place he didn't want to tell me
18:24about it because he shouldn't have been added anyway and also it was broken
18:30and so responsible and anyway so he got evaluated you know when something he thought he might be able
18:36to sort it out but he hasn't and then it came to me as she was just said he broke
18:40it and then it would
18:41have been a lot easier
18:43so the claimant was now saying he didn't break the watch but it was his 17 year old son who
18:49did
18:49so his story had changed but would it change the outcome of his claim
18:55the party holder had little to gain in a way by um changing the account because if it was his
19:01son who
19:01had caused the damage it had happened many months before and that was really where the issue with this
19:07claim was as there was no insurance in place at the time he wasn't covered something the claimant didn't
19:15seem to grasp
19:34at least liz had cleared that up but there was one more thing she needed to spell out
19:40it was made very clear to the policyholder that technically he had committed insurance fraud
19:44and it would be up to his insurer whether or not they invoke fraud condition by cancelling his policy
19:52liz was also curious why he had even tried to hoodwink his insurer and for good reason
19:59the policyholder alluded on several occasions to the fact that he knows of financial problems
20:09i mean we have such a ridiculously healthy um bank account in my suits alone probably worth 10 000
20:16pounds you know you tear a fuse is 300 pounds so i'm a big spender i've got both i've got
20:22everything
20:23i mean honestly i i do a five hundred pounds every day at work manufacturing
20:29it's possible that the the comments about his wealth were a distraction tactic
20:36so that i would think maybe you know oh well there's only 600 pounds it's nothing we'll push
20:40it through but this wasn't something liz would do and the decision would rest with his insurers
20:46who may accept his withdrawal or may decline it on the grounds of fraud
20:52ultimately the final decision is going to be there to say to which the two routes are going to go
20:56down and they will inform you in writing of that okay um before liz compiled her report for the
21:05insurers she found something on the voice recording that was really interesting that even if a policy
21:12holder is on hold that the recordings are still running and that did happen in this case he was only
21:18put on hold because he was literally just being transferred across to me so i could speak to him
21:23good afternoon you're free to michael claims management i'm gonna help
21:26let me speak to this story please bear with me a second i'll see if she's available when he was
21:31on
21:31hold he was heard to say i shouldn't have done that in a very whispered sort of voice
21:36just gonna pop me through thank you
21:45so he knew he was wrong but what would his insurers decide the claim was sent back to the
21:51insurance company with a recommendation that it be declined and the fraud condition be involved
21:59on this occasion it was lucky for the claimant as his insurer let him withdraw the claim and didn't
22:05pursue the matter any further
22:17still to come we go behind bars where a weightlifting accident leads to legal action
22:23i was really aghast i felt i'd done everything possible to avoid such an incident
22:37what can seem like a small claim may only be the tip of the iceberg if a scammer is setting
22:43his sights
22:43on more than one firm then the damage and costs are multiplied tcs claims is used to unraveling complex
22:51cases and this next example would have tested the patience of a saint so the customer submitted a claim
22:57online it related to a shopping trip they've been on they've been to london they'd used the tube
23:02and they'd had their laptop stolen from a rucksack value of the claim was 1200 pounds
23:09i went to the shopping office after my friend's house yeah when i checked my
23:14mattress was missing i thought they might be in my friend's house might be in the shopping area might
23:21be in trains i called my like a friend who did i miss my back there they said no yeah
23:28then i went to
23:29the train station the operator gave me a number they said you need to call and if i find then
23:35i
23:35will let you know straight away with claims of these nature we would ask the customer to provide us
23:40with documentation where we're really trying to look to see if they've got any kind of proof of
23:44purchase or proof of ownership which would allow us to be able to validate the claim if we needed to
23:49ask you for any proof of purchase for the laptop um would you be able to provide that so the
23:55box that came in
23:56a receipt anything at all yeah i can i'll go like he gave me a transfer letter you know so
24:05he said this
24:05is my name so i'm gonna transfer if you buy this one so you need to sign transfer letter if
24:12you need it
24:12then i will send it to you oh okay and he did along with an invoice but had he realized
24:19the significance
24:20of this vital bit of paper he may have thought twice the customer sent the invoice in to us and
24:27when it arrived it was actually from one of the suppliers that we actually use so we actually used
24:31them to be able to provide our replacement goods to customers on electrical items when we received the
24:38invoice from the supplier it wasn't in the name of customer one who had actually submitted the claim
24:45it was actually in the name of customer two who was a previous customer it simply wasn't proof of
24:51purchase for customer one who was making the claim clearly this was very strange so the team went back
24:58to the claimant to ask why the invoice was in a previous customer's name customer explained that they
25:04had actually bought the laptop off the previous customer and were willing to provide us with a bank
25:11statement confirming the funds had changed the laptop when was it you bought off your friends in may
25:19in may yeah on the 1st of may you've given me given us an ownership letter it states that um
25:26mr has sold
25:28his macbook pro to for 1190 pounds so your friend has spent 1200 pounds on a laptop and then a
25:40week
25:40later sold a superior laptop to you for less than he purchased the other one for that doesn't make
25:46much sense to be honest that he would lose money and come out of it with a sort of a
25:51letter laptop
25:56he doesn't appear to know much at all and none of the documentation he supplied was helping
26:02the customer sent in the bank statements and there were kind of three fundamental issues with the bank
26:08statements that we received the first one was that the customer said that he purchased this laptop
26:14in may and yet he didn't pay for it until june which in itself is quite conspicuous we then check
26:22through the bank statements and in june you would expect to see a payment of the 1200 pounds going
26:27out of his account however the payment went the other way so the previous customer actually paid this
26:33customer 1200 pounds now we clarified this with the customer of which he then changed his story
26:42and sent us further documentation which related to a payment going out of his account in april
26:49you've actually provided us with a bank statement that shows you actually bought the laptop a month
26:53after you took out the policy so at the time of the policy inception there was actually no financial
26:59interest in that laptop and you did not own it i i don't understand which explanation yeah um you've
27:05actually given us a bank statement to show that you paid mr 1200 pounds on the 23rd of june yeah
27:15because because money is not up because we are just families we can pay like after one month or four
27:21months it doesn't matter you know because we are just a family friend so you know this was a rather
27:29unconventional way of doing business and it raised suspicions with tcs claims this suggested that
27:36between the customer and the previous customer they were potentially making claims for laptops
27:44switching accounts and amounts between the accounts and making fraudulent claims the claimant had
27:51helpfully alerted the company to the fact he knew the previous customer listed on the invoice he unwittingly
27:58supplied so from the information we were provided with we could go back and look at the previous
28:03customer's claim and when we did this the circumstances were almost identical with the only difference being
28:10the mode of public transport that the customer used this simply suggested that the customers were
28:17collaborating and using the same version of events to potentially make another claim
28:22a payout was not an option based on the evidence which was a bit like quicksand
28:27i've got a macbook transfer letter in front to me saying i
28:32sell my macbook pro to with the amount of 1100 pounds if that's been created when the incident happened
28:41and backdated we wouldn't actually be able to accept that and it's not actually signed by you i'm afraid so
28:46it's not a complete document
28:58what had been presented was useless and then there was the issue over payments or lack of them
29:05the bank statements that you provided us do not show that you've paid for any money um on the other
29:11hand it does show that he's paid you over 2700 pounds i don't know because i didn't um obviously you
29:21must have bought the laptop off your friends do you remember when that would have been until what month
29:24perhaps it's may it's not it's may but you definitely you definitely paid in the may for a laptop
29:35yes may or june may or june at this stage we i do not think we'll be able to accept
29:42this claim
29:43as the macbook it doesn't actually show that you actually own it at this point in the call the claimant
29:49must have realized he wasn't going to get anywhere despite his totally unconvincing story and
29:55inadequate documentation he decided to cut his losses with a very cheeky request to claw back his
30:01insurance payments could i get my old money refund because because i'm going to cancel this insurance
30:08now straight away because i have no insurance right now i have no laptop right now sorry i'm going to
30:14cancel it so could you please transfer my all my money which i already paid about five six months
30:19to you guys every month what i can do is i can pass you up to a cancellations department they
30:24can attempt
30:25to look into refending your premiums for you however it is not our fault that we haven't been able to
30:29support your claim the documents you've provided aren't sufficient i'm afraid we're more than welcome
30:33to cover loss of theft of a laptop on this policy but the documents as i said you haven't provided
30:39correct documents hopefully any ideas he and possibly his friend had of trying it on with tcs claims again
30:46were nipped in the bud i believe that based on the evidence that we had and certainly the bank
30:53statements that showed a number of transactions going in and out of the account that potentially
30:57these customers would were looking to make more fraudulent claims and i wouldn't be surprised if they
31:03hadn't made other claims with other insurers insurers do share details so their cards could be marked
31:10it's extremely frustrating that customers would choose to take this course of action
31:16as an insurer we're always looking to try to pay genuine claims as quickly as possible
31:21but clearly on this occasion and on other occasions there are customers that are prepared
31:25to either make up circumstances or alternatively look to make fraudulent claims
31:40there are currently around 7 000 fitness clubs in the uk with nearly 10 million brits attending them
31:47whether you're into fitness classes the rowing machine or the cross trainer be aware that the
31:53bustling environment of a busy gym could expose you to a few trip hazards with all that equipment lying around
32:02our next case happened at a gym when an attendee was lifting weights during an evening session
32:07but this wasn't any old gym this was the gym in wakefield prison
32:13i was first made aware of the claim shortly after i became governor of wakefield a prisoner who had been
32:20involved in a weightlifting activity with our pe staff and suffered an injury and was making a claim
32:27against uh the prison service for the um for the injury that uh he'd sustained um saying that we
32:34were at fault the claimant was looking for about four thousand pounds in compensation
32:40and it made no difference if the person putting in the personal injury claim was behind bars or not
32:47we receive a lot of claims because we're responsible for every aspect of a prisoner's life
32:51that prisoners will quite often believe we're at fault for things that have happened to them
32:57accidents do happen but that doesn't always mean that someone else is to blame
33:03but in this case the prisoner was saying that the gym instructor was to blame for his accident
33:09the injury resulted when um unsecured weight discs slipped from a bar that the prisoner was in
33:17proximity of and he was claiming that those collars were removed by a member of staff
33:22and that as a result of that he suffered injury and those collars were important collars are secured
33:29onto the bar to keep the heavy discs in place while moving or lifting it without collars the discs can
33:36fall off and cause injury which was what the prisoner was claiming
33:42not only that but he claimed it was the gym trainer who would remove them which the prison's governor
33:47found curious health and safety is paramount and specially trained pe staff supervise prisoners to
33:54lift weights so it surprised me that on this occasion um it appeared that that hadn't happened
34:00and a prisoner was injured as a result the trainer on duty that evening was also shocked
34:06when i heard about the claim i couldn't i was really aghast um i felt i'd done everything possible
34:14to avoid such an incident um with the gym user but the prisoner was placing the blame for his injury
34:22entirely on neil's shoulders he claimed that he'd been using the weights i'd come up behind him i'd
34:31removed the collars and he wasn't aware that they had been removed and tried to replace the bar back
34:37onto the racks and consequently injuring his thumb he had a nasty cut to his left thumb which we believe
34:45later on he subsequently needed stitches to that wound the injury was real but neil's recollection of that
34:53evening was completely different it was the end of the session and we needed to clear up to get the
35:00prisoners back onto the wings for lockup i approached the station where the claimant had been working
35:08i removed the collars the claimant was returning back to the station where i was
35:13and i showed him and demonstrated that i'd taken the collars off which he acknowledged by nodding his head
35:20i then returned back to the equipment cabinet to return the collars i heard a loud bang
35:28i turned around saw the claimant holding his thumb i said to him why did you move the bar from
35:34the floor
35:35to the rack without any collars and he nodded and said i know i know i know
35:41the versions were different but it was possible the gym staff hadn't given the prisoner adequate training
35:47which could still make them responsible for the accident the claimant had in completed gym induction
35:54and been showed how to use all the equipment appropriately and safely so i knew the claimant
36:01quite well i'd been working with him for a number of years and he was a very experienced gym user
36:08strangely enough i had spoken to him on several occasions about using equipment properly him not
36:13using collars and about tidying his weights way appropriately in his timely fashion
36:19but just why had neil taken the colors off this prisoner doesn't always abide by the rules often
36:27i had advised him about lateness he often stretches things to the limits and on this occasion he was
36:35delaying people returning back to the wing so i removed the collars to try and get the prisoners back
36:40to the wing in a timely fashion neil had done everything by the book following the accident
36:47he'd administered first aid and taken the prisoner to the healthcare team for treatment
36:52so was amazed when the claimant had got a claim against me for negligence and malpractice
37:00and you would think that given his injury he wouldn't be back in the gym for a while shortly
37:06afterwards he started using the equipment as normal not only that despite being advised to stick to
37:13cardio exercise he'd gone back on the weights immediately and within a month was back to his full
37:19weight lifting regime and at this point the governor of wakefield prison decided to put his full weight
37:27behind neil where we're at fault then you know we will we'll accept that but where we're not we will
37:34robustly defend that and we'll always go to court it would now be for a judge to decide who was
37:42responsible for the accident as a result of really good evidence given by our staff about how they had
37:49managed the gymnasium on that day and what they'd done the claimant had also given evidence by video
37:56link but his own testimony had tripped him up he had told the judge that he was standing over the
38:02weightlifting bar the whole time so she fell to see how he could have missed seeing neil remove the collars
38:11it was a great relief when the uh claim was dismissed at trial i felt that this had compromised my
38:17integrity as an experienced gym officer within the prison community we'll never stop defending these
38:25claims as robustly as we do when we think that the claim is unjust we'll defend it to court every
38:32time
38:40so scooters once synonymous with the iconic 70s mod generation have become a popular modern solution
38:47for economical travel but riding one comes with risks in a low-speed collision a car may escape with
38:56little more than a few scratches the unprotected rider however faces a far greater danger
39:04that was allegedly the case when a scooter and a car collided one day but there was a problem
39:10the insurer handling the claim could not determine who was at fault so to establish the facts they
39:17called upon forensic engineers gbb to provide clarity the experts at gbb have considerable experience
39:25they're all very very well qualified with engineering degrees we're involved with crash
39:30testing we are a research establishment and so we are able to determine how certain marks are caused
39:35to vehicles and we're asked frequently to determine which events or version of events in any particular
39:41collision is is more likely in this instance the insurer didn't know whether to believe their customer
39:47who was driving the range rover or the claimant who was on the scooter the circumstances were described
39:54by the scooter rider that he was stationed and the range rover had reversed into the front of his scooter
40:01causing damage to that scooter and injury to the rider the alternative view from the driver of the range
40:09rover was that he was stationary and felt a minor contact to the rear of his vehicle he got out
40:15and found
40:15that the scooter had ridden into the back of his vehicle we were there for us to try and determine
40:22which version of events was more accurate so they sent out their top engineer to inspect both of the
40:30vehicles hoping the marks and dents on them would show exactly what happened that day
40:36he was able to determine exactly where the contact occurred on each vehicle which was important and
40:43he was able to determine the magnitude of the contact of these two vehicles the gbb expert concluded that
40:50there was a minor contact what he couldn't determine unfortunately was which one of the individual's
40:55stories was accurate there was a good reason for this and that was because of science
41:03we're dealing with newtonian physics and it is indeed sir isaac newton whether the range
41:11rover reversing to the front of the scooter or whether the scooter running to the back of the
41:15range rover the actual physics of that is exactly the same all the expert can say is look i can
41:22give you
41:23two scenarios because the science fits both as far as the investigators were concerned
41:31it was scientifically impossible to favor one version over the other the damage to the vehicles would
41:38have looked exactly the same in either scenario the problem then came when the claimants solicitors the
41:49motor scooter rider instructed an engineer to give his opinion so an engineer who represented the scooter
41:58driver also went out to inspect the vehicles he said that the evidence supported the fact that the
42:04range rover reversed into the front of the scooter now that astounds me really because the science is
42:11exactly the same so it is impossible to determine
42:15things were not adding up and they also knew from experience that such a conclusion was often inevitable
42:22it is no surprise that somebody instructed by a party gives an answer that the party wants to
42:28hear we don't do that at gbb we look at the evidence give an impartial view and the evidence
42:34is what it is it suits neither one side nor the other furthermore when we deal with cases that are
42:41potentially fraudulent it is very rare that the engineers on the other side who agree with us
42:48but when the report from the other side came in gbb's engineer noticed a discrepancy
42:54when he had seen the scooter he'd noted the mileage on the odometer
43:00interesting that when it was seen by another engineer the odometer reading the mileage had
43:07changed it had increased so if there is a suggestion that the scooter then is not roadworthy as a
43:13consequence of this collision which happens frequently then how does the mileage increase
43:20either it's used or there is a problem with that odometer the other guy suggested that there was
43:27merely a problem with the odometer with all these conflicting opinions there was no choice but to
43:33take the matter to court so a joint statement was prepared the claimants engineer was suggesting it suited
43:41their view that the range rover reversed into the front of the scooter and the gbb evidence was put
43:48forward to say to the judge look the engineering evidence in that regard does not assist you
43:53one way or the other without the gbb evidence the judge effectively was being pushed towards preferring the
44:01evidence of the motor scooter rider but with gbb's alternative view to level the playing field
44:08he judged in favor of the range rover in this particular case the judge found that the whole claim was
44:16fundamentally dishonest
Comments