Jailed, DJ who tried to con the NHS out of £800k

WHEN a DJ was negligently treated at hospital for minor injuries he sustained in an attack, the NHS offered him £30,000 to settle the case.

But not content with the offer, Sandip Singh Atwal exaggerated the effect of his injuries – fractures of two fingers and a laceration to his lower lip – and demanded more than £800,000.

Now, after his lies were exposed, he has been jailed for contempt of court in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country.

A High Court judge said the 33year-old’s deceit was made worse by the fact that it was an attempt to defraud the NHS.

Atwal, pictured, from Huddersfield, was treated at the town’s Royal Infirmary after he was attacked with a baseball bat in June 2008.

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust admitted failures in his treatment and offered him £30,000.

But Atwal, who worked in his family taxi firm, asked for £837,109, including substantial sums for future loss of earnings and care, on the basis he was unable to work and incapacitated.

However, solicitors acting for the trust were suspicious because his claimed disabilities were inconsistent with medical records.

In 2015, they commissioned covert video surveillance and probed his social media postings. He was found to be working as a courier and still performing as a professional DJ.

Their findings led to the trust applying to have him committed to prison for contempt of court at the High Court in London.

After finding 14 allegations of contempt proved at a hearing in April, Mr Justice Spencer jailed him for three months yesterday.

The judge said the case was ‘seriously aggravated’ by the fact it was an attempted fraud on the NHS, as it would have been the NHS budget which ‘bore the loss’ if his dishonest claim had succeeded.

Atwal was also ordered to pay £75,000 towards the trust’s legal costs, but the judge said he doubted the trust will be able to recover all of that debt, ‘if any at all’.