We recently had cause to
appeal a decision of a District Judge preventing us from relying upon video footage (even though he had described it as “
pure gold”).
Our video evidence showed the claimant as unreliable (at best) but the medical evidence was not conclusive and the claimant’s statement was out of date. We needed the claimant to “
pin her colours to the mast” so she could not later argue that she had good and bad days. We were working on this as the trial date loomed closer.
We were disappointed at first instance that the District Judge decided we were trying to ambush the claimant when we were clearly not. We were vindicated on appeal and the evidence was allowed in, leading to the claimant discontinuing.
This claim illustrated the fact that each case will turn on its facts and that there may be good reasons why surveillance evidence is not disclosed until relatively late in the day. If there are good, plausible reasons, then following the test in Rall v Hume (2001), the video evidence should be allowed.