Seven experts fabricated evidence on cost of replacement cars for drivers in crashes, saving insurance firms millions of pounds

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Seven expert witnesses who fabricated evidence about the cost of replacement hire cars for motorists in road crashes have been jailed.



In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, a high court judge in London said they had been involved in “a very serious perversion of the course of justice” and imposed prison sentences of as much as 13 months.

The seven all worked for Autofocus Ltd and became caught up in “perjury on an industrial scale”, said the judge.

In thousands of cases, the now defunct Autofocus provided insurance companies with expert rate surveyors who disputed the daily rate the hire car specialists Accident Exchange Ltd could claim for providing replacement vehicles.

The experts, who are estimated to have saved insurance companies millions of pounds, were found guilty of contempt for untruthfully stating that they had checked the spot rates for comparable vehicles within a locality and that the Accident Exchange charges were inflated and excessive.

In six cases, the experts perjured themselves when they gave evidence on oath when disputes went to court, said the judge.

Accident Exchange, which brought a private prosecution for contempt, estimated that 30,000 cases were affected by the defendants signing false statements of truth after making rates reports.

The dishonest actions of Autofocus and the defendants hit the share price of Accident Exchange.

It led to losses in excess of £100m, with 300 employees being made redundant, said the judge.

Mr Justice Supperstone jailed the seven on Friday and ordered them to pay a total legal bill that could be as high as £1.5m.

The judge said another court had observed in a pre-trial hearing that if the evidence against Autofocus and the seven was correct, the case involved perjury on an industrial scale.

He declared: “The evidence that [Autofocus] was involved in the systematic, endemic fabrication of evidence in which the defendants and each of them knowingly and actively participated throughout the material time is overwhelming.”

The Autofocus expert and team leader Nathan George Broom, from East Anglia, was jailed for 10 months; the company director Elaine Carlton Walker, from Gloucester, received 13 months and one week; and the team leader Duncan Carl Sadler, from Oxford, was jailed for 12 months.

Four other defendants, referred to as “footsoldiers”, received lesser penalties – Andrew Watts, from Wirral, Liverpool, was jailed for seven months; David James, from Wirral, for eight months; Laurence Gray, from Oxford, for six months and three weeks; and Keel Broom, from Beccles, Suffolk, for six months.

Unlike the other six, although guilty of contempt in making false statements, Broom never perjured himself by lying in court.

The judge referred to submissions by John Rees QC, appearing for Accident Exchange, that – with the exception of Walker, the company director – none of those before the court were “the main perpetrators of this very serious perversion of the course of justice”.

They allegedly were the Autofocus chairman Colin McLean, managing director Suzy Forrest and director Paul Wilcox. They also included Stuart McLean, training officer and brother of Colin McLean.

The judge said the Autofocus bosses were involved in proceedings in the commercial court, along with three firms of solicitors, and facing claims by Accident Exchange for some £126m for causing it financial losses between 2005 and 2010.

But the seven facing jail were “willing participants” in the fabrication of reports.

The judge said: “In this case the evidence against them is absolutely overwhelming and there was no defence from day one.”