An insurance fraudster who pretended he was so disabled he couldn’t even pull up his underpants has been jailed and faces a £150,000 court bill.
Mark Hilton, 49, was filmed doing his Christmas shopping – despite having claimed he couldn’t dress himself, lift a cup of tea, and needed a frame to walk.
Hilton, of Dartford, Kent, suffered soft tissue injuries when a heavy fuel hose fell onto him as he filled a tanker while working as a driver for Elliott Thomas Group Ltd in 2015.
Suing for over £600,000 in compensation, the grandad-of-six claimed the injury had left him so disabled he could barely function.
But his claim unravelled when private investigators caught him on film walking his dog, Christmas shopping in Ikea, fixing his car and visiting the West Ham store at Stratford.
Hilton’s claim was kicked out of court by a judge and now, after admitting contempt of court, he is facing a £150,000 bill and a ten month prison sentence.
Mr Justice Constable said: ‘This was a most calculated – if ineptly executed – attempt at defrauding insurers.’
In statements filed for his insurance claim, Hilton said he needed help getting dressed, could not drive, had to use a Zimmer frame to get about and claimed he could only walk about 20 yards due to his disability.
He said: ‘For all intents and purposes I am housebound.’
Footage from 2016, however, showed him driving to a shop, walking in without a stick, and later footage in 2018 proved he was not as severely disabled as he claimed.
Mr Hilton admitted the contempt, apologised for what he had done and appeared before Mr Justice Constable for sentencing in London last week.
Outlining the case for the insurer, QBE barrister Paul Higgins described Mr Hilton’s £600,000 compensation bid as a ‘very serious fundamental dishonesty case.’
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In claiming he was so disabled he was effectively housebound and couldn’t even pull up his pants or walk very far, Mr Hilton had ‘grossly exaggerated’ his injuries.
Jailing him for ten months, Justice Constable said Mr Hilton was guilty of a ‘very serious’ contempt of court.
He added: ‘There was an extremely marked disparity between his real ability to carry out daily activities – which included working on his car, shopping, walking – and a very serious curtailment of his lifestyle and abilities, as described repeatedly in his witness statements and acted out in his attempts to mislead the medicolegal experts.
‘The most aggravating aspect of the contempt is the quantum of the claim – in excess of £600,000.
‘This was a most calculated, if ineptly executed, attempt at defrauding insurers.’
The judge also ordered that Hilton be liable for QBE’s costs of the case, which lawyers estimated at about £150,000.
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