Heywood Resident’s £13,000 bill for dishonest claim

A local woman who submitted a dishonest compensation claim against Rochdale Borough Council has been ordered to pay legal fees of nearly £13,000.

The council defended a claim brought by Mary Brennan of Birnam Grove, Heywood, who claimed she had suffered a fractured ankle after falling into an open drainage grid. The claim stated that on 7 May 2016 at approximately 7.30am she had been walking to a local newsagent when she fell down an uncovered hole. Various accounts referred to her falling into the narrow hole up to her waist, while another said it was so deep that only her head was showing.

The claimant was said to have been assisted by an apparently independent witness who claimed to have found her in the hole. The witness said after finding the claimant he had gone to her home and returned with her son to get her out and assist her back home. An ambulance was later called.

But the council spotted a number of holes in the concocted story and fought the claim utilising section 58 of the Highways Act (1980) on the basis that four days prior to the alleged incident the hole had been secured. There were also inconsistencies between the initial claim, medical reports, proceedings, witness statements and the ambulance call transcript, which were highlighted during the hearing.

The judge found the claimant's explanation for a 90-minute delay between the time of the accident and the call for an ambulance unconvincing and the court was also sceptical about the witness and his explanation about how he came to be involved in the case. The claimant’s daughter also conceded that the care and assistance, for which a claim had been made, was care she was already providing. 

During the November 2020 trial, the judge accepted the council’s defence and accepted that everything had been done that could have been done, so the claim failed. The judge found that the independent witness, the claim for care and assistance and therefore the whole claim, to be ‘fundamentally dishonest.’ The claimant was recently ordered to pay the council’s legal fees totalling £12,786.48.

Julie Murphy, chief finance officer at Rochdale Borough Council said:  "It is totally unacceptable to submit a false claim and then expect council tax payers to pay up. All insurance claims made against us are taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. If we find discrepancies, as we did in this case, these can be used as evidence in court. This is public money and those who submit dishonest claims can end up paying all our costs. This case shows how expensive it can be trying to defraud the council and the borough’s council tax payers."