In Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan v The Home Office [2026] EWHC 2856 (KB), the High Court attributed fundamental dishonesty to a claimant whose litigation friend had given the false history to the experts. Because the claimant had capacity, was present throughout and feigned symptoms to match, the judge found that he knowingly participated. The decision shows what evidence links a claimant to a litigation friend’s account, and where the limits of that reasoning may lie.
Background
The claim arose from the claimant’s immigration detention between September 2013 and February 2014. It began as a judicial review and was amended to add a claim for damages for personal injury [2], valued in the Schedule of Loss at over £7 million [4]. From 2014 the proceedings were conducted by a litigation friend, Ms Mathew, appointed without court order by filing an N235 [12].
Each expert took the history from Ms Mathew, the claimant being presented as unable or barely able to communicate [41], [50], [54], [55]. Surveillance then showed the claimant driving, going to the gym and out with Ms Mathew and three children, and her Home Office file described him as her spouse [59], [61]. Her appointment was terminated, the claim was discontinued, and Lambert J directed a trial of the fundamental dishonesty issue under CPR PD44 para 12.4(c) [6].
Costs Issues Before the Court
The defendant sought a finding under CPR 44.16(1) that the claim was fundamentally dishonest [25], so as to enforce, beyond the QOCS limit, the costs liability the claimant incurred on discontinuance under CPR 38.6 [28], [29]. As the false history had come from the litigation friend, the court had to decide whether the dishonesty was the claimant’s own, and then whether it was fundamental to the claim [33], [37]. Capacity was determined as a preliminary matter [10].
The Parties’ Positions
The defendant, through Mr Fetto, put its case squarely on deliberate invention or exaggeration of symptoms [35], and on a dishonest conspiracy between the claimant and his litigation friend [26], [36]. It relied on Patel v Arriva Midlands Ltd [36].
The claimant, unrepresented, said in submissions that he was unwell from 2014 to 2018, that Ms Mathew did everything for him, and that seeing professionals made him very anxious [70]. He chose not to give evidence [22]. Ms Mathew, who did not attend [74], said in her statement that she had not properly understood that these matters should be disclosed and did not intend to mislead [67].
The Court’s Decision
Capacity was the foundation of the attribution analysis. Mansfield J noted that Ms Mathew had been appointed without court order, that no court had ruled that the claimant lacked capacity, and that the presumption under s.1(2) Mental Capacity Act 2005 applied [12]. The claimant, Ms Mathew and his solicitor all now said he had capacity, and Professor Maden thought he probably always had. The judge found that the claimant had capacity to conduct the litigation at the current time [13].
On the law, the judge accepted that a claimant may advance a dishonest case through a litigation friend [36]. In Patel v Arriva Midlands Ltd, relied on by Mr Fetto, the claimant was found dishonest both in his own presentation and in failing to correct false information from his litigation friend. Mansfield J observed that those findings depended on the claimant being presumed to have capacity and being able, on a good day, to contact his solicitors to correct the facts [36].
He added: “Different considerations may apply in a case where the claimant does in fact lack capacity and the dishonest exaggeration of the claim is all on the part of the litigation friend.” He did not need to consider that situation, having found that the claimant had capacity; the defendant put its case as a conspiracy [36].
The judge then asked directly whether the false account was Ms Mathew’s responsibility rather than the claimant’s, since it was she who gave the history to the experts [98]. The claimant was present on each occasion. He had a Tamil interpreter on each occasion and obviously knew what she was saying. It was open to him at any time to correct the record, and he did not. Instead, he feigned symptoms consistent with her account [98].
Mansfield J went further, finding that the claimant had feigned a lack of ability to communicate so as to avoid answering the experts’ questions and being found out [98]. He found that Ms Mathew and the claimant acted together: “The Claimant knowingly participated in the false accounts given to the experts.” When examined in 2026, they deliberately exaggerated the symptoms and he deliberately feigned behaviour to deceive the experts [99].
The explanations offered did not displace that finding. Difficulty with expert meetings could not account for his presentation, because Ms Mathew described a day-to-day incapacity consistent with it and never said he presented worse than normal [97]. The denial of any intention to mislead was rejected: Ms Mathew had actively given a false account, and the claimant’s fear of re-detention, taken at face value, itself showed deliberate concealment for his own benefit [104].
The finding was not confined to 2026. The judge found the claim fundamentally dishonest from its introduction in 2014 [103]. Although Dr George’s reports pre-dated the relationship, the deception had been so extensive that the history the claimant and Ms Mathew gave him could not be relied on [103]. The claimant had also presented in the same way to the care and employment experts in 2020 and 2021 [102].
Applying the test in Ivey v Genting Casinos Limited [34], the conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people [105]. In Howlett v Davies, Newey LJ cited with approval a first instance passage explaining that dishonesty going to the root of the whole or a substantial part of a claim, rather than a collateral matter, would make it fundamentally dishonest [37]. The false medical account underpinned general damages, loss of earnings and care. Making no finding on the public law and false imprisonment claims, the judge held the dishonesty fundamental to the claim as a whole [106].
The claimant was liable under CPR 38.6 for the defendant’s costs of the whole claim to the date of service of the notice of discontinuance, and permission was granted under CPR 44.16(1) to enforce that order to the full extent [108].
Practical Implications
This is a first instance decision, but it gives defendants a structure for attributing fundamental dishonesty where the litigation friend is the source of the false history. Capacity should be addressed first: where the appointment was made by filing a certificate, there may be no court ruling of incapacity and the statutory presumption applies [12]. Expert reports should record who was present, whether an interpreter was used and how the claimant behaved while the history was given, because those facts carried the finding [98].
Claimants’ representatives should note that silence in the room, combined with feigned symptoms matching the account, can be treated as knowing participation. Where a client is presented as unable to communicate, representatives should satisfy themselves about capacity and about the accuracy of the litigation friend’s account before it reaches experts.
Where the claimant genuinely lacks capacity and the dishonesty is all the litigation friend’s, the position was expressly left undecided [36]. A claimant resisting enforcement on that footing should put capacity in issue with medical evidence; here the claimant had permission to file updated medical evidence and did not [12]. Defendants who uncover dishonesty after discontinuance should seek a direction under CPR PD 44 para 12.4(c), so that fundamental dishonesty can be tried without setting aside the notice [30].
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