Paul McCann became embroiled in a court battle with Amazon after suing the company over a workplace injury he sustained at a Swansea warehouse
A former Amazon warehouse manager feared he would lose his home following a court battle with the tech giant.
Paul McCann, 62, from Llangynwyd in Bridgend county, sued Amazon after a fall at its Swansea fulfilment centre left him with an injury. He lost the case after the company instructed private investigators to film him going about his daily life. A judge at Swansea County Court later ruled he had exaggerated his injury and was “fundamentally dishonest” – a finding Paul strongly rejects.
Judge H James dismissed his £124,000 claim, ordered him to pay £75,000 to Amazon for legal costs and to repay a £5,000 interim payment he had previously received, WalesOnline reports. A charging order was placed on his house, leaving him afraid he would be forced to sell in 2027 when his fixed-rate mortgage ends.
However, Amazon decided to drop the charging order and its pursuit of costs after being contacted by WalesOnline. Paul told the outlet he and his daughter were “ecstatic” at the news, though he remained angry about the ordeal, claiming Amazon had “destroyed” him.
Nearly nine years have passed since the workplace accident that changed his life. At the time, Paul was an Amazon area manager overseeing staff at the Swansea site. The court heard he was standing in near-darkness in a loading bay at around 5.20am on January 10, 2017, when he was “accidentally nudged” by a colleague, causing him to fall about two feet from a ramp and land on his left hand.
He claimed Amazon was negligent for failing to repair a broken spotlight over the bay that had been reported “several” times in the month before his accident. He also alleged a safety barrier removed months earlier due to disrepair had not been replaced by Amazon.
“The pain was excruciating,” he said. “It was horrendous. I told my manager: ‘I think I’ve broken my arm.’ But no proper first aid was offered. They said there was no-one on site to give it. I had to drive home using my right arm to change gear and steer. My then-wife could see how badly injured my arm was so she took me to the Princess of Wales A&E in Bridgend.”
Paul suffered a serious elbow fracture and soft tissue injuries to his forearm and wrist and subsequently underwent four operations. He claims he still has limited movement in his left arm and remains in “extreme pain”, adding that the injury ended his hobbies, affected his mental health and contributed to the breakdown of his marriage. His 31-year-old daughter moved in to help him with daily tasks.
“It’s soul-destroying,” he said. “One minute you can do everything and then it is all taken away. I can’t go to the gym anymore, I can’t swim as I used to every day. I used to fish, I used to golf every week. I can’t do any of it.”
An orthopaedic surgeon who examined him in 2022 said Paul would have even considered amputation of his left arm despite there being no guarantee this would “control his level of pain”. “Mr McCann is dependent upon the assistance of his daughter for many aspects of daily living,” surgeon Jon Wand wrote at the time.
“He cannot dress and undress independently. He is unable to get into the bath without assistance. He cannot tie up his shoelaces. He is unable to cut up food and feeds himself exclusively right-handed. He has difficulty doing up buttons. His daughter does the laundry, cooking, washing up, cutting his food, and does all the housework and shopping.”
Paul returned to work after four weeks’ sick leave and had further periods off after each of his four operations. He said he felt pressure to fulfil “responsibilities that I couldn’t because of my arm”, adding: “Every day I would sit in the car park contemplating whether to go in – and I was a senior manager.”
He eventually left Amazon in 2020 with a £32,000 severance package, but his court claim – which he had filed weeks after the accident – continued until 2024. At an early stage of the case, Paul had received a £5,000 interim payment to help pay his bills. Liability for the accident had been conceded by Amazon’s insurer, according to court papers from Paul’s solicitors.
But around two years ago, Paul was informed by his solicitor that Amazon had hired surveillance operatives to follow and film him doing activities such as shopping and taking part in a park-run – footage that would prove damaging to his case.
Dr Ivan Ramos-Galvez, one of the pain experts who had examined him, wrote a new report casting doubt on the severity of Paul’s injury. The doctor noted the footage showed Paul using his left arm to lift a crate of six bottles of water while shopping, writing. “He is seen being able to lift his upper limbs above shoulder height.”
But he also pointed out that Paul’s left hand appeared “floppy” when at rest. He concluded that while he still believed Paul experienced “painful symptoms” and restricted movement, “he may have exaggerated his disability to me in consultation”.
Another pain management consultant, Dr Mark Alexander-Williams, said the videos suggested Paul was “noticeably more capable than he has said” and able to “run, drive and shop in a natural, comfortable, bimanual way”.
Paul described learning about the footage as “a kick in the nuts”, claiming it did not give “a representative view” of his daily life and left him reluctant to leave his home. “They have footage of me in Tesco picking up items. But I never said I couldn’t use my arm – I said it was very painful to use. I can’t fully straighten it and I take paracetamol, co-codamol and ibuprofen just to get through the day.
“I’d been having pain in my chest and my GP said: ‘You need to get exercise.’ I’d gained three stone in the previous 12 months because I couldn’t exercise so my partner and I thought we would do a parkrun. That didn’t mean I could put weight on my arm.
“There was one clip where I had a stone in my shoe. I put my foot on a bench to take off the shoe and put it back on. They assumed I’d done my laces but I’d actually just tucked the laces in.
“I stand by every single claim I made about my injury. I think it’s a case of there being miscommunication between myself and the experts throughout the past seven years to the extent that these people think I can’t move my arm. I can move my arm – it’s painful.”
Amazon argued Paul had been “fundamentally dishonest”, a legal threshold introduced in 2015 that allows judges to dismiss personal injury claims if exaggeration is proven. The judge agreed, dismissing his £124,000 claim in losses and enforcing the charging order on his home.
Amazon’s solicitors successfully argued: “The overall picture is one of a claimant who has not given a fair presentation of his claim. The claimant has dishonestly sought to maximise the value of his claim… by lying about the extent of his injuries.”
Paul did not need to pay his own solicitors, who had taken the case on a “no win, no fee” basis, but after the judge ordered he pay Amazon’s costs a charging order was attached to his two-bedroom house in Llangynwyd.
The order meant Amazon could take an £80,000 cut when the property was next sold. As long as Paul kept paying his mortgage he could stay there. But with his fixed-rate deal set to end in two years, his financial adviser warned he would be unlikely to find a lender willing to overlook the charging order and offer a new fixed rate. This would mean a rise to the much higher standard variable rate, which Paul said he would not be able to afford.
“I took an advance on my pension for a deposit when I got the house three years ago,” said Paul, who now works in health and safety training. “The value is about £200,000 but with my daughter owning half and Amazon taking £80,000 I’d have very little left after the sale.”
While Paul told WalesOnline that Amazon dropping the charging order and its pursuit of costs was “absolutely outstanding”, he believes the company only changed its position out of concern over how it would look for a working-class man to lose his home while the tech giant received such a tiny sum relative to its revenue.
“They are money-oriented and I don’t believe they give a monkey’s toss about their workforce,” Paul claimed. “All I want is for Amazon not to treat people the way they’ve treated me.”
An Amazon spokesperson said: “Following a review we confirm we will not be pursuing the matter further.”
