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I have read the judgment of Mrs Justice Yip and I think the important part is para 32:

"...it is clear that in finding that the claimant had not established his claim for future care, the judge was not bound to find that the clamant had acted dishonestly merely in presenting such a claim. The reason for the judge's rejection of this element of the claim was not that he found the Claimant's evidence to be untruthful..."

I'd make two points about this.

1. It has to be right that finding a head of loss has not been established does not necessarily lead to a finding of dishonesty.

2. The trial judge did not find the claimant's evidence to be untruthful in relation to the rejected future care claim.

Mrs Justice Yip did not see any reason to interfere with the TJ's finding on point 2.

The other points I would make are more general and are made without knowledge of the original trial.

1. The claimant seems to have been assisted by some shoddy drafting. The judge was critical of the Schedule of Loss which effectively pleaded evidence obtained - in large part - from a care expert whose report seems to have been rejected as simply being inaccurate. It is not clear to what extent the care report was based on the claimant's account to the expert and it is not known to what extent this issue was probed.

2. There was some two years between the (erroneous) care report and the trial. This may have had a bearing on matters. It does not appear that the claimant demurred from the report, but this is not evidence of dishonesty.

3. The claimant's witness evidence appears to have supported a much more watered down version of the care report.

4. It cannot be helpful to run to trial with a schedule pleaded largely on the back of an erroneous care report. It is not clear if costs were reduced by 25% because of that, or some other reason.

5. It may have been a tactical decision to confront the claimant with the content of the care report and the schedule at trial, armed with the surveillance evidence, hoping that he would admit to dishonesty. C seems to have stood up to those allegations and may have found some haven in the fact that the care report was two years old and not of his direct creation.

Almost impossible to get a proper feel for a case without the benefit of all of the evidence.

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