Bains v Irshad & Curdworth Limited [2025] EWHC 491 (Ch)

Charlie Newington-Bridges acted for the successful defendants in the High Court case of Bains v Irshad & Curdworth Limited [2025] EWHC 491 (Ch), a high-value partnership dispute. He was instructed by Rhodri Lewis, a partner at Darwin Gray LLP.

In a judgment following a 9-day trial in November/December 2024, HHJ Matthews dismissed all claims making findings that a twin that the claimant had said existed did not in fact exist and was instead an invention that the claimant and his associates had used amongst other things to make fraudulent life insurance claims worth c. £2.2m.

The sometimes extraordinary evidence before the court included that of a private investigator who had followed the claimant’s trail to India where the claimant had arranged to fake the death of his invented brother in an attempt to make the life insurance claims.

In a cross-examination over three days, Charlie cross-examined the claimant on matters including:

• The fact that only one photo existed of the claimant and his purported twin brother, but that photo as the claimant eventually admitted had been created by a photography shop splicing together two separate pictures of the claimant.
• The doctor who signed the death certificate of the twin in India had admitted to faking the death certificate having been pressurised by an associate of the claimant.
• An apparently fake passport for the fake twin had been obtained from an Indian consulate, something the Indian consulate itself recognised.
• No record existed at all of the alleged twin prior to about 2000 over 50 years after the supposed birth of the twin. There were no school records, no medical records, no record in the censuses and no work pay slips, no P60 or P45s, save for one relating to a company that only came into existence after the date of the supposed P60.
• In a life insurance policy application of his own, when asked about siblings, the claimant had forgotten to mention his twin brother.

In his concluding paragraph HHJ Matthews said this about the case:

“For the reasons given above, I dismiss the claimant’s claims in their entirety. Given my findings as to the lies which the claimant and his associates have told in the course of this litigation, and my findings as to the behaviour of the claimant more generally, I propose to send the papers in this case to the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

The judgment will provide interesting insight into the court’s approach to lying witnesses; in particular the tests of factors to take into account when determining whether or not a witness is lying: see paragraphs 23 and 24 of the judgment of HHJ Mathews in particular.

In connection with the findings on lying, some of the remedies sought in the claim were equitable. the defence to those claims included a clean hands defence. The judgment also provides a reminder of the extent and applicability of the doctrine: see paragraphs 284-287.

The judgment can be read in full at:

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2025/491.html