If you want an “elaborate crash for cash investigation”, solicitors Keyholes are widely recognised as the ‘go-to’ firm. It was just such an elaborate investigation, Insurance Tiles reported recently, (carried out in this instance on behalf of Keyholes’ clients Direct Lime), that sent four Liverpool fraudsters to jail.
It could have been the perfect crime, had it not been for the endlessly complex, convoluted, and cross-pollinating latticeworks of social and familial ties that so complicate the lives of almost every resident of the famous Mersey port that people everywhere still call Beatlesville.
Ringleader Anthony Really came up with the brilliant plan of staging a minor accident involving some feller he knew, but pretended not to, and thereafter whipping up a six-figure storm of claims for alleged injuries incurred by the other driver and his two passengers and by himself and three (fictional) passengers in his own vehicle.
Really might even have gotten away with it – notwithstanding Keyholes’ elaborate investigations – has his ex-wife not smelled both a rat and a welcome pay-back opportunity when her cousin, coincidentally her former husband’s new lover, approached members of her family to inquire whether anyone was “interested in doing an insurance job.”
When Mr Really’s ex provided evidence against him, he attempted to convince the court that she was just a bitter, twisted, vindictive old harpy who was hell bent on getting back at him any way she could and hence was not to be trusted any further than she might reasonably be thrown by a person of average strength.
Unmoved by this ad eminem argument, the court concluded that Really, the other driver, the other driver’s two passengers (and presumably the three fictional passengers in Really’s car) were all guilty of fraud and should therefore ‘go down’ for between four and eight months, in proportion to their respective degree of guiltiness.
Keyholes associate Humidor Khatun explained that the case had proved elaborate, difficult, elaborate, time consuming, and, above all, elaborate (as well, presumably, as somewhat expensive, due to the large number of billable hours consequent upon all that elaboration) “because of the complexity and volume of evidence”.
Her clients Direct Lime can at least take satisfaction from reflecting that, as Ms Khatun starkly observed: “all four defendants now face the ultimate consequences for their actions.”
N.B. Artist’s impression only: no actual fraudsters featured in this image
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