Fraud is a hot topic at the moment, what with personal injury reforms guaranteed to save everyone £50 on their car insurance (yeah, right, and Shrewsbury will win the cup! Ed.).

So it was with great excitement last week that the City of London proclaimed a ‘two-day crackdown’ on alleged ‘slip and trip’ fraudsters.

The evidence for some arrests appeared pretty damning: the police alleged that in one example a woman in her 20s from Salford was discovered bungee jumping on a reality TV show when she was supposed to have been resting a bad back following an accident.

Another suspect, a 52-year-old man from Bradford, was alleged to have invented a fall from a chair in a casino, after CCTV recorded his accident.

While Obiter would always support efforts to stop fraud and punish wrongdoers, the definition of a ‘crackdown’ is open to question.

Over the two days, it turns out, 13 arrests were made in the whole of England and Wales. More than a week later, we contacted police press officers to find out how many had been charged: none.

 

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