Locke v Stuart & Anor

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).

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:-

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effect to this aim, but in the result one claim was settled by Equity Red Star (Accident I), and all the others were withdrawn save this one.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.

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.

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.

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:-

This, therefore, is simply an issue of fact.

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.

If that evidence is true, the claim succeeds. The Second Defendant mounts essentially a two pronged attack on it.

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] Q.B. 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.

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

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.

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 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:-

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.

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.

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:-

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.

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:-

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.