A clinical negligence claimant who vastly exaggerated the extent of his injuries has been committed for contempt of court.

Part-time disc jockey Sandip Singh Atwal, from Birmingham, had pleaded a total claim worth £837,000 in relation to finger and facial injuries suffered following treatment at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary in 2008. Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust admitted liability but contested causation and quantum, challenging Atwal’s assertion that he required more than £421,000 for future care and £255,000 for loss of future earnings.

In 2016, and after video evidence and social media checks had uncovered he was lying about the effects of his injuries, Atwal accepted a Part 36 offer of £30,000 to settle the claim. A consent order allowed him to recover his costs up until January 2012, but the court ordered him to pay the defendant’s costs after that point. Once the trust’s post-2012 costs were totted up, and the pre-2012 figure deducted, Atwal was left owing £5,000.

Following a committal application heard before The Honourable Mr Justice Spencer last month, the judge further found that 14 allegations of contempt were proved.

The court heard Atwal had claimed to have lost confidence because of his appearance, but he continued to make regular DJ appearances and even featured in his own music video. Claims that he could not work or drive due to hand injuries were disproved by him gaining regular employment as a courier.

His claim for care costs, the judge said, was ‘all based on the wholly false and fraudulent premise that [Atwal] required, or had ever required care of the kind envisaged and claimed for’. The judgment added: ‘The statement verifying the schedule was false and deliberately false.’

Atwal, who was not present at the application hearing, was due to find out last week what his penalty would be. It has been reported this was the first time an NHS Trust has applied for contempt proceedings against a claimant.