A claimant involved in a major fraud ring has been found in contempt of court after paying an imposter to impersonate him at trial. The applications for contempt arose from one of 13 litigated actions linked to an operation in which Keoghs defended a major retailer against multiple claims following orchestrated road traffic collisions.
The claimant, Mr Mouradi, had issued proceedings for vehicle damage with the claim due to proceed to a remote trial in December 2020. At the outset, Keoghs and its client (‘the defendant’) applied to rely upon an amended defence pleading fraud, with a counterclaim issued in the torts of deceit and conspiracy, along with a request to case manage the matter with the other claims which formed part of the ring.
That hearing was attended by a person purporting to be Mr Mouradi, but the court was told that his camera was not working and therefore he could only attend by phone. During the hearing ‘Mouradi’ maintained that he had no knowledge of the incident and accused his previous solicitors of fraudulently issuing a claim without his instructions. He also made an unusual application to exclude a Mr Tawfeek from proceedings (the alleged driver of the vehicle involved in the incident, who had also joined the remote hearing), saying he was fearful of repercussions for drawing the court’s attention to the fraud.
Mouradi filed a witness statement confirming that his first knowledge of the incident was when he had been contacted by the claimant solicitors and that he had attended the hearing to advise the court of this. He also later filed a signed statutory declaration to confirm his identity.
The defendant’s application to amend and adjourn was successful, with the matter transferred to the County Court at Central London to deal with the allegations of fraud against the claimant solicitors – allegations which were subsequently dismissed.
Mr Mouradi attended that hearing with a man known only as Abdul Abdul. The court was told that Abdul was Mouradi’s uncle and that he wished to act as his McKenzie friend. This proved to be a major misstep, as similarities were recognised between the voice of Abdul and the person who identified himself as Mouradi at the hearing back in 2020, and this was brought to the court’s attention.
Abdul’s application to act as a McKenzie friend was declined and both Abdul and Mouradi were sworn in to answer questions regarding attendance at the first hearing under oath. Mr Mouradi maintained that he was present at the hearing, whilst Abdul confirmed that he was present in the room with Mouradi to assist him, but that he did not address the court at any point.
A forensic voice analysis expert report was obtained which confirmed that it was, in fact, Abdul that had addressed the court at the previous hearing. The first application for Mr Mouradi’s committal was then issued - for permitting another to dishonestly pose as him at the hearing, for lying further in his subsequent witness statement, and also for lying in the face of the court at the second hearing.
After securing legal aid, Mouradi’s second witness statement conceded that Abdul had attended the original hearing but that he had not known he was going to pretend to be Mouradi. He also admitted that he had previous knowledge of the road traffic accident and had instructed the claimant solicitors, but that he only became aware of the accident after it had occurred. He maintained that the entire incident had been arranged by Tawfeek, and that Tawfeek had used him to bring a claim for the vehicle damage.
With the case adjourned again, it was apparent that the judgment obtained by the defendant at the civil trial against Mouradi was inconsistent with what he was now saying in the contempt proceedings. The unusual step was therefore taken for the defendant to set aside its own judgment in the civil case so the judge could make findings based on evidence at trial, with the contempt proceedings stayed pending the outcome of that trial.
The defendant did not accept the witness evidence presented by Mr Mouradi in the contempt proceedings. In view of the various findings of fact at the trial, a second application for committal was issued on the basis that Mouradi had knowingly made false statements in his witness statement for the original contempt action, specifically the suggestion that he had no knowledge of the incident before it had occurred, and that he had not been present with Abdul when he misrepresented himself to the court.
At trial, the defendant relied on the witness evidence of their driver and another alleged passenger in Mouradi’s vehicle at the time of the incident, both of whom had confessed to conspiring to stage the incident. The voice analysis report, and other elements of the court recordings, were used to undermine Mr Mouradi’s defence along with yet another statement filed by Mr Mouradi which maintained his original position.
Mouradi declined to give oral evidence at the final contempt hearing and invited the court to dismiss the allegations not already admitted by him.
The judge found that Mouradi and Abdul collaborated over the imposture before, during and after the two hearings. She was satisfied that Mouradi was present in the same room as Abdul during the first hearing and that they had conspired to cover this up at the second hearing.
She also accepted that Mouradi had some knowledge of the intention to stage the road traffic incident prior to it happening. She found that, by his own admission, Mouradi was regularly in contact with Tawfeek and it was therefore ‘inherently improbable’ that he knew nothing of the incident in advance. However, she could not find beyond reasonable doubt that he had been present in the vehicle at the time of the collision.
Mr Mouradi will be sentenced later this year on three specific issues:
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