The Plaintiff had pursued a claim for personal injuries, loss and damages arising out of a road traffic accident on 22 February 2004. The Defendant admitted primary liability and a pre-proceedings offer of £63,750 was made to the Plaintiff. He refused and pursued proceedings in the High Court, claiming loss of earnings of around £600,000. The case settled 3 days before trial for the pre-proceedings offer of £63,750.00. After the claim was settled documents were discovered by the Defendant which suggested that the Claimant had deliberately and dishonestly presented an inflated claim. For example the documents showed that the Plaintiff had lied about his post accident employment.
The Defendant applied to the court for the committal of the Plaintiff on 27 counts of contempt of court on the basis that he had advanced a dishonest claim. The allegations included that the Plaintiff had lied in witness statements, to experts and to his solicitors about the extent and nature of work he was doing post accident. The Plaintiff however denied that any of the statements were intentionally dishonest. The Plaintiff accepted that some of the statements that he had relied upon were misleading, however he averred this was due to his carelessness and irresponsibility rather than evidence of a deliberate attempt to mislead the court.
The court, in applying the test for contempt set out by Blackburne J in Sony Computer Entertainment and Others v. Ball and Others [2004] EWHC 1984 CH, dismissed the application holding:
The judge in this case held that the Defendant had not satisfied to the criminal standard that the Plaintiff acted with dishonest intent to pursue a false claim. The Application for committal was dismissed.