Go-karting: Claimant took part in competition
A High Court judge has hit out at the “scandalous” waste of public resources in the form of legal and other costs by a man who fabricated a £7m personal injury claim.
Mr Justice Mansfield outlined Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan’s “dishonesty over many years” in holding him fundamentally dishonest in legal terms, meaning that the costs protection usually afforded to a personal injury claimant on losing was stripped away.
“On the basis of that fabrication, and with the benefit of legal aid, the claimant has engaged huge resources in terms of lawyers, medical experts, care experts and employment experts in pursuit of millions of pounds in damages.”
Mr Gopalakrishnan had put the Home Office “to much work, at taxpayer expense” in defending the claim, and “significant judicial and administrative resources have been taken up over many years, both in this court and in the Administrative Court”.
The Home Office pleaded fundamental dishonesty after it obtained video surveillance evidence earlier this year showing him carrying out a range of normal activities, including spending an hour at the gym and even taking part in a go-karting competition.
Mansfield J said it would be sufficient for a finding of fundamental dishonesty that the claimant had been dishonest in 2025 and 2026. “However, I find that the claim has been dishonest since it was first raised, in 2014.”
The High Court heard that Mr Gopalakrishnan, a Sir Lankan national, came to the UK in 2010, overstayed after the expiry of a student visa in 2012 and in September 2013 made an unsuccessful application for asylum.
He was kept in immigration detention between September 2013 and February 2014, then released on health grounds.
His claim was originally brought in October 2013 as an application for judicial review challenging the refusal of asylum and amended to add a claim for damages for personal injury.
Mr Gopalakrishnan was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2023 and the public law aspects of the claim were compromised by a consent order. The personal injury claim was listed for trial last month.
He claimed that his treatment in immigration detention caused serious and long-term psychiatric injury, rendering him incapable of work and in need of round-the-clock care.
“Since 2014, it has been said that the claimant lacks capacity and the proceedings have been conducted on his behalf by a litigation friend, Reena Mathew.”
She was said to be someone who knew him from their local church and provided care to him on a volunteer basis.
The video surveillance evidence “rapidly changed the landscape of the claim” and allowed it to plead fundamental dishonesty.
It showed he was active and that Ms Mathew was actually his wife and mother of his three children, the eldest of whom was born in 2019.
Ms Mathew came off the record as litigation friend, on the grounds that Mr Gopalakrishnan had capacity. Duncan Lewis came off the record as his solicitors and was replaced briefly by David Benson Solicitors before the claim was discontinued.
Mansfield J said that Ms Mathew and Mr Gopalakrishnan “acted together”.
They “deliberately exaggerated the claimant’s symptoms” for medical experts and he feigned behaviour in order to deceive them.
He ordered Mr Gopalakrishnan to pay the Home Office’s costs up to the notice of discontinuance and said an application for costs after this date could also be made.
He added: “The story of the complete destruction of the claimant’s life as an independent adult would be tragic, and the story of Ms Mathew’s devoted care for him would be inspiring, if any of it were true. As is now clear from the evidence, the story is a fabrication.”
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