Personal injury news

Cruel wife steals paralysed man’s car accident
claim compensation

A callous wife who stole her paralysed husband's car accident claim compensation as he lay crippled in a hospital bed has been spared jail.

Lianne Smith, from Harwich in Essex, admitted taking nearly £20,000 from her husband's bank account after he was awarded a £200,000 sum following a horrific road traffic accident just three weeks after they were married.

Having power of attorney, she plundered Jonathan Noble's account and jetted off to Fiji with another man, before treating eight friends to a trip to watch England play at the Euro 2004 football tournament in Portugal.

At Reading Crown Court Smith admitted five counts of theft, totalling £19,700, and an additional eight counts- estimated at £40,000- were left on file. The court also heard how £60,000 was spent consensually by the couple, including money forked out on breast enlargements, sports cars and shopping trips.

The first Mr Noble knew about his wife's excessive spending was when he received a bank statement showing that the £200,000 from his car accident claim had been whittled down to just £7,000. He challenged her when she came to visit him in hospital, and she came clean and was arrested a month later.

Judge Stanley Spence imposed a suspended sentence of eighteen months on Smith, who is in the process of getting a divorce and works part-time as a barmaid.