'Crash for cash' scam man is jailed

Mohammed Patel, 24, of Bolton, charged £500 a time to stage accidents which enabled drivers to claim an average of £17,000 from insurers.

He staged at least 93 crashes, earning himself around £46,000, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

Patel, of Nottingham Drive, admitted one count of conspiracy to defraud, six counts of dangerous driving and four counts of driving while disqualified. He was jailed for four-and-a-half years and banned from driving for three-and-a-half years.

Stressing that his crimes were not victimless, Judge Bernard Lever told him: "The wickedness of these staged accidents is that you gave no thought to the victim.

"The victim may have been an elderly person, a person with a heart condition, a person of a nervous disposition."

Patel deliberately staged slow-speed collisions to protect himself from whiplash. But he ignored the possible psychological and physical consequences for his victims.

The judge added: "Only a significant custodial sentence will send the direct message out to the public and to other people who are tempted to behave in the disgraceful and dangerous way in which you have behaved."

William Baker, prosecuting, said Patel's earnings funded an "Aladdin's cave" at the home of his unemployed girlfriend Ettorina Hay. The court heard the pair enjoyed luxurious foreign holidays and drove expensive cars. Mr Baker said the scam was exposed by suspicious office workers at Bovis Homes, who overlooked the Eden Point roundabout on the A34 at Cheadle Hulme. He said that in the latter part of 2005 "they became suspicious that road traffic accidents were being staged" because of the number and similarities of every crash.

Mr Baker, describing the set-up, said: "One vehicle colliding with another at low speed with minor damage and often the same person driving the lead vehicle."