Legal fees cap to cut bogus holiday claims

HOLIDAYMAKERS who make false sickness claims will find it tougher to bring cases after the Government announced that legal costs would be capped for the first time.

The travel industry said that the number of false claims had risen by 500 per cent since 2013 to 35,000 a year.

A legal loophole means that there are no limits to legal costs in travel claims, meaning that companies face huge costs if they lose.

Many travel operators set- tle out of court rather than challenge claims because they fear that they will be hit with enormous legal bills. The Government is now bringing the claims within the “fixed recoverable costs regime”, which provides limits for legal costs.

Rory Stewart, the justice minister, said: “Claiming compensation for being sick on holiday, when you haven’t been, is fraud. This damages the travel industry and risks driving up costs for holidaymakers.”

Last month Chelsea Devine, 21 and Jamie Melling, 22, were ordered to pay £15,000 to the travel company Tui after they falsely claimed that they had fallen ill while on holiday in Spain. Photographs of them posing by the pool, which they had posted online, proved that they had not.