in High Court
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• An HGV driver who limp, into a high court witness box last week, using.crutches anc encased in a metal corset am surgical neck brace, was branded a fraud.
John Day claimed that a minor lorry shunt in Novemb, 1985 had left him a virtual cri ple unable to dress himself oi even cut up his own food.
Mr Justice Boreham concluded: "Unhappily there has been on the part of Mr Day deliberate exaggeration and, since the summer of 1986, d( liberate feigning of symptoms Brian Langstaff, defending, claimed that Day's alleged co] dition resulted from an accide when he was working for Bracknell District Council on 25 November 1985.
After a brief recovery Day' condition had deteriorated, so Langstaff, and he had never again been fit to work. Langstaff told the court that Day had graduated from a single walking stick to two and then on to crutches, a neck brace and a metal corset, and that Inow occasionally required a wheelchair.
Day, it was claimed, had been unable to continue his hobby of shooting and could n longer tend his beloved garde: Bennett showed the court two videos taken by a private investigator which, he claimed showed Day walking with crutches but not using them ti support his weight. The council's trump card was the evidence of elderly neighbour Ethel Tibble, who told the court that on one occasion sh( had seen Day "virtually run round the side of his home as to answer the telephone."
Borehatn decided that Day had suffered at least some injury from the accident and awarded compensation of 23,500 plus £242 medical expenses up until the summer of 1986 and for "such modest symptoms that have persisted to date". He added that Day should now "face up to matters" and look for a new job.
The judge, however, ordered that the legal costs be paid by the local authority.