Insurance chancer pays the price (article)

mike65

this from unsion.ie

FOR years labourer Niall Jennings (24) nurtured a dream scenario of being a passenger in a car that gets rear-ended by another, a court heard yesterday.

When it actually happened, he told the driver and fellow passengers: "We can get 30 or 40 grand out of this," Judge Elizabeth Dunne was told in the Circuit Civil Court.

His hopes of a €38,000 windfall were shattered when Judge Dunne threw out his claim and ordered him to pay legal costs.

Bridget Barry, counsel for defending motorist Patrick Turner, told Jennings the impact was so slight no-one could possibly have been injured to the extent he claimed to have been.

Jennings, of Friary Grove, Smithfield, Dublin, heard Paul Hughes, the driver who gave him a lift from work, tell Judge Dunne his car received only "a tap" from Mr Turner's car.

They had been sitting in crawling traffic at Castleknock and the only damage to his car had been a cracked reflector. After exchanging details with Mr Turner, he got back into his car and heard Jennings ask for an ambulance and say he had a pain in his neck and back.

When he and his two other passengers laughed at this, Jennings said: "I don't know what you are laughing at. We can get thirty or forty grand out of this." Jennings then added he had been "waiting for one of these to happen for years". Mr Hughes said he paid no heed to Jennings's request for an ambulance and dropped him near his home.

Jennings had claimed he "was shocked and distressed and suffered immediate and severe personal injuries by reason of the ferocity of the collision". When reviewed in hospital on July 18, 2001, he still suffered low back pain.

Judge Dunne said Mr Hughes and Jennings did not know one another at the time and she could see no basis for Mr Hughes making up the story. He had nothing to gain or lose. Dismissing Jennings's claim, Judge Dunne noted he had played football on July 6, 2001, just four months after the rear-ending, when he suffered a knee injury

Some justice then!

Mike.

Doctor J

It'd only be justice if they knocked him down and gave him some real back troubles. I hope the legal costs are sufficient to discourage other chancers out there.

Is it not illegal to make a fraudulent insurance claim?

Andrew Duffy

He should get a prison sentence, but that would mean our taxes paying to keep the little **** inside. How about a 10 year driving ban (should he ever decide to learn), a €15,000 fine and 12 rounds with the current Garda or defence forces boxing champion?