HF and Admiral Insurance have saved tens of thousands of pounds through a finding of fundamental dishonesty.

Michelle Scully, who until April this year was employed in a senior position at Bond Turner solicitors representing claimants in claims against insurers following road traffic accidents, has been found guilty of bringing dishonest insurance claims following accidents in 2015 and 2016.

According to the judgement, the claimant was involved in three separate car accidents and in each case she was a passenger.

In each of the three accidents Miss Scully alleged significant injury, in particular a psychological impact which, she said, prevented her from exercising at the gym and led to her losing weight, eating badly and becoming unwell. Miss Scully sought damages to the tune of £65,000.

However, during the period of time that Miss Scully said she was prevented from attending the gym and exercising, she managed to take part in a 10k race with her then-employer, Carter Law, completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks Walk around July 2018 and climbed Ben Nevis in July 2017; according to her social media posts.

In addition, it would appear that Miss Scully not only used her knowledge of working in the legal system to try and make these claims, but that she also lied about her qualifications while working in legal firms. Miss Scully claimed to have achieved five A-grades at A-level and be studying towards a level 6 CILEX qualification, when in fact, she only had one A-level. According to Miss Scully’s LinkedIn profile at the time, she had worked at various well-known law firms holding positions including ‘Head of Litigation’ and ‘Insurance Fraud Team Leader’ and another where she claimed to head up one of their insurer client accounts. Just days before the beginning of the trial, Miss Scully resigned from Bond Turner before admitting to the court that she had been due to appear at a disciplinary meeting regarding her qualifications the next day.

In his judgment, HHJ Bird said that Miss Scully was ‘a generally dishonest person’ who ‘gave evidence without any regard for the truth guided only by what she perceived to be her own interests. She made things up when asked difficult questions and on occasion gave patently false answers’. He found she was uninjured in any of the accidents and ordered her to pay the costs of all defendants on the indemnity basis. He also ordered that a copy of his judgment should be supplied to the Law Society, CILEX and each of the law firms where it could be established she had worked.

Alex Wilkinson, Partner at HF and Head of the firm’s Technical Fraud Team, instructed by Admiral Insurance in respect of two of the three accidents, said: “Michelle Scully thought she could use her knowledge of the claims process to dishonestly obtain compensation for accidents that, in fact, caused her no injuries. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the lies she had told about her qualifications throughout her legal career, potentially denying someone else a job that they would otherwise have secured, are scandalous. I am glad for the industry that Miss Scully’s dishonesty has been uncovered and that the insurers involved in this litigation took the decision to fight these claims to trial”.

Ian Price, Head of Claims Fraud at Admiral, said “Miss Scully deliberately lied and misled the court about the real impact the car accidents had had on her life. When our policyholders told us that Miss Scully was uninjured in the two accidents they were involved in we decided to fully investigate. What we uncovered shocked us, especially given Miss Scully worked in the insurance claims industry. We’re pleased that HHJ Bird agreed with our submissions and found that the claims Miss Scully presented were false and that she did so knowing full well that her actions were dishonest.

“Admiral remains fully committed to paying compensation to genuine claimants fairly and quickly. However, fraud is not tolerated. We work hard, along with policyholders and our legal panel to defend claims we believe to be dishonest and continue to take appropriate steps to eradicate fraudulent claims in all their forms.”

Counter Fraud Fundamental Dishonesty