One of the changes to civil court procedure which was made following Lord Woolf’s report in 1996 was to require a party’s statement of case to be verified by a statement of truth.

To put forward a case which you know to be a pack of lies, in other words, became a contempt of court and punishable by imprisonment.

There have been any number of cases in the last few years where people have put forward lying and fraudulent personal injury claims, and the courts have taken a pretty stern line. Thus the Court of Appeal in Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Ltd v Zafar  (2019) “We say at once, however, that the deliberate or reckless making of a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth will usually be so inherently serious that nothing other than an order for committal to prison will be sufficient”. 

Similarly Lord Justice Moses in  South Wales Fire and Rescue Service v Smith  (2011): “Those who make such false claims if caught should expect to go to prison. There is no other way to underline the gravity of the conduct. There is no other way to deter those who may be tempted to make such claims, and there is no other way to improve the administration of justice”.

Now, those with long memories may recall the case of Mr Afzal, the defeated Labour candidate in Aston, Birmingham, in 2022. He had the brass neck to bring an election petition complaining that the Lib Dems had made false allegations against him during the campaign. He withdrew the petition after video footage emerged showing that the Lib Dem allegations had been absolutely true. The judge angrily commented that Mr Afzal “… had the audacity to issue these proceedings in the knowledge that the allegations quite properly made by the Respondents in the course of the election campaign were truthful. He persisted with the Petition and served evidence from himself and others which was and he must have known to be false”.

How was the gravity of Mr Afzal’s conduct underlined? It wasn’t. The only thing that happened to him was that he was eventually stripped of his title of honorary alderman of Birmingham – and even then he had the cheek to whine that  he was being discriminated against by virtue of his age and race.

Tongue somewhat in cheek, I wrote to the Attorney-General’s office a while back asking them to confirm what sentence Afzal had received. I didn’t expect a reply, and I didn’t get one.

But the conclusion is pretty clear. Tell a porky that threatens to cost an insurance company money, and you’ll be threatened with jail. Tell a heap of lies that undermine the democratic process and, apart from making the judge a bit cross, no-one’s going to be terribly bothered. Two-tier, as the saying of the moment appears to be.

* Neil Hickman was a Liberal constituency chair long ago and is currently a member of Breckland Liberal Democrats, Norfolk.