Middle-class family jailed for LV= personal injury swindle

Accountant Minaxi Shah who faked severe disability from a road crash in attempt to swindle £600,000 from LV= has been jailed for six months by a top judge.

Her husband Anil, 51, and daughter Neha, 23, were also jailed for three months after helping her claim that she was in need of care and help from her family in carrying out basic domestic tasks.

But the fraudster was eventually foiled after LV= put private investigators on her tail who spotted her moving normally and apparently working full time.

All three admitted contempt of court in telling a pack of lies in a bid to extract cash from insurers LV=.

Today at the High Court, Lord Justice Laws told them: “Corrupting the stream of public justice is generally more poisonous that the telling of a lie by one man to another… The administration of justice and its protection demand that these three defendants be sent to prison”.

The judge, sitting with Mr Justice Simon, said the trio’s excuses for their behaviour were “largely footling and disingenuous” and their only mitigation was their admission of contempt and their clean records.

Laying down a warning for would-be insurance fraudsters, he added: “Those who make such false statements should expect to go to prison.  If found out, the consequences for those responsible will be disastrous”.

Shah, of (Lewgars Avenue), Kingsbury, was injured in a rear-end shunt in Streatham High Road, South London, in 2005, and put in a claim for almost £640,000, not including compensation for her “pain, suffering and loss of amenity”.

However, she settled her damages claim for just £10,000 late last year after being confronted by the surveillance footage.   She was hit with a £7,500 legal bill and must now also pay the costs of the contempt proceedings, estimated at £25,000.

LV=’s move to have the trio jailed in a civil court was extremely rare, although a handful of similar cases have been launched recently by insurers who say they are faced by endemic fraud.

Defence counsel, Adam Swirsky, said they had “readily admitted” their contempt.  “All three accept that they have brought these matters on themselves.  It is something they feel incredibly ashamed about.  They find it very difficult to go out in the community or face their family”.

Pleading with the judges not to jail them, he added: “I ask the court to take into account their genuine remorse and deep sense of shame they feel at what they have done”.