Claimant in a staged car accident jailed

At last the courts are taking this fraud seriously

Husband jailed but wife walks: 'Crash' couple sentenced in insurance fraud uncovered by Facebook profiles

They crashed into each other but denied they knew each other. Claimed personal injuries. But appeared on each other's Facebook pages.

I think that this is the funniest bit:

"The gardaí were contacted and when officers arrived at Ivory's home to arrest her for questioning Ward answered the door."

These people were obviously really trying it on! However this type of activity is a regular occurrence and professional scammers are well aware of insurance company's willingness to pay out relatively large sums rather than go to Court. It's stuff like this that has us paying some of the highest insurance premiums in Europe.

Why was the wife allowed to walk, it's disgusting, just because she has to mind the kids, surely they were relatives to take over this function. What a greedy for money pair in trying to pull this scam off. At lease they have been named and shamed which in itself is a great thing. I hope the powers that be catch more of these scammers so insurance cost will come down for the majority.

This couple stood to gain €30,000 from the fraud, that is a substantial sum of money and would take a long time for a person to save it from their wages or salary.

These dimwits ,have rightly been punished.
Its just a pity some of our less dim-witted white collar scammers are not hammered ;
could it be the less dim-witted require proper professional investigation.

these two were @ best stupid.

If the wife avoided jail purely because she has to mind the children, she should have been given a jail sentence to start when his finished.

Seagull said:

she should have been given a jail sentence to start when his finished.

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Brilliant idea. I hope the DPP appeals.

Amazed one of them was jailed. Even more amazed they didn't rely on their standard defence when caught.

mathepac said:

Amazed one of them was jailed. Even more amazed they didn't rely on their standard defence when caught.

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mathepac,

I was also amazed one was jailed, but maybe for different reasons.
It looks like he had previous form and hadn,t learned.
I see little point in the expense of jailing, its a very blunt deterrent.
could they not have hit his pocket ?
if he had to pay a large fine over time ,and then if he didn,t pay it then jail him, that keeps the pressure on him over time to pay and avoid other shenanigans.ie pressure stays on him.
Would that not deter others ?

There was a spate of convictions for these down in Cork recently as well and I don't think anyone was jailed, or perhaps they have yet to be sentenced. Real lesson here is that there is no privacy for what you post online, full marks to the claims investigator for looking up their Facebook accounts to discover them together.

How come the other couple (passenger in one car was also the spouse of the driver of the other car) weren't prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. There is no way that they couldn't have known what was going on here

thedaddyman said:

full marks to the claims investigator for looking up their Facebook accounts to discover them together.

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Yes and I suspect this is only a starting point for them. I'm pretty certain they would move on to 'last known addresses' and right down to calling at the door like the guards did.

Seagull said:

If the wife avoided jail purely because she has to mind the children, she should have been given a jail sentence to start when his finished.

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I'd never thought of that before and it's generally the women who gets off which is unfair, I can see the reasoning but that's a brilliant suggestion instead, send the idea to Minister for Justice please ! Long gone are the days when women were seen as forced to do things by their husbands.

Gerry Canning said:

...
I see little point in the expense of jailing, its a very blunt deterrent.
could they not have hit his pocket ?
if he had to pay a large fine over time ,and then if he didn,t pay it then jail him, that keeps the pressure on him over time to pay and avoid other shenanigans.ie pressure stays on him.
Would that not deter others ?

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Let me be frank and up-front here. My expectations are not that jail is a method of reforming habitual criminals, but it is a means of protecting society from their activities for a while.

Depriving convicted criminals of their liberty leads directly to a reduction in the number of crimes in an area. Ask any Guard. By suspending criminals' civil liberties and incarcerating them, you limit the costs of their criminal activities to society. Imposing financial penalties or fines may only increase the level of criminality they engage in or direct. Sentencing them to community service for eight hours per day still leaves them free for sixteen hours to earn money their way. My solution is to have them do tightly supervised community work unpaid and spend the balance of the day in jail.

We could do a simple sum like calculating the cost their crimes and the cost of detection, prosecution and incarceration, total the lot and didivide the national minimum wage into that number giving the length of their sentence. No discounts allowed by judges, but victim impact statements increase sentences by varying amounts.

Lifetime or at least a very long driving ban should have been considered too...

Mathepac, I have sympathy with your view but.

1. Costs circa k80 per criminal in jail per year.
2. Our friend does 1 year and comes out better trained?

I would want to tweek the penalty in a way that makes it more costly for people to re-offend and lasts longer than the 1 year behind bars.Also (saves) most of the k80.
If people re-step out of line then hammer them.

I do think in this case he got jail because he hadn,t learned and maybe jail = only option.

My proposal goes some way to addressing those issues and leaves less time to cook up new crimes and contacts while incarcerated.