Beautician caught out in insurance con

Incredible ruse saw woman joke with a driver – and then claim to be his victim

Insurance News

By Paul Lucas

Beauticians normally work with make-up… but this one chose to “make-up” a story instead.

The Hull Daily Mail reports on Jamie Richardson, 29, attempting to con her insurance company out of thousands of pounds after claiming she was sitting on a bench that was hit by a lorry. She stated that the alleged impact had “jolted her back” causing her to injure her leg and miss a month off work.

However, the truth appears to have been quite different.

According to prosecutor Matthew Harding, speaking in Hull Crown Court, Richardson had a conversation with the lorry driver shortly after the incident and was joking that she had in fact been sitting on the bench five minutes earlier.
“She made no complaint of being injured,” he told the court. “She didn’t appear to be injured in any way.”

Indeed not only did the driver claim that nobody was sat on the bench in Withernsea when the accident took place, but two independent witnesses said the same.

Yet remarkably when the driver was waiting for his customer to arrive, a Vauxhall Vectra driven by Richardson’s partner arrived - he was then “aggressive” and claimed the driver had left Richardson “lying on the floor badly injured.” The driver claims this was not the case and in fact he only “touched” the bench leaving no mark or damage to the vehicle. The bench merely moved a few inches.

Richardson, however, called the police and claimed to have been sitting on the bench when the incident occurred.

When taken to court, Richardson initially denied any wrongdoing – but then changed her plea and admitted fraud by false representation. The jury delivered a guilty verdict and she was sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended for two years, and ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work. She was also ordered to pay £1,440 compensation towards the insurer’s costs of £1,885.70.

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