Grant Greening-Steer, 51, is claiming just under £5million in damages from Derek Ainge and his insurers after suffering a broken spine in a motorbike crash – the trial continues
An engineer who says he needs a mobility scooter and struggles to tie his shoelaces after a motorbike crash has been accused of faking his symptoms in a £5million bid for compensation.
Grant Greening-Steer, 51, fractured his spine when a car pulled out in front of his Yamaha motorbike near his home in New Milton, Hampshire, in June 2019, with the impact also causing a “moderate to severe traumatic brain injury”. Now, nearly seven years on, he is suing the driver’s insurers for around £5million in damages over multiple injuries.
He claims his injuries have stopped him working, left him sometimes needing a mobility scooter and struggling “with laces and buttons”. His legal bid also includes a £160,000 claim for someone to walk his dog.
But lawyers for the driver and his insurers say secretly shot surveillance footage shows Mr Greening-Steer walking normally and proves that he is in fact a “malingerer” and “deliberately lying” about his symptoms to claim millions. At the start of his High Court case, Charles Woodhouse – representing motorist Derek Ainge and his insurers – accepted the “seriousness” of the crash, which caused extensive physical damage sustained on top of his spinal fracture, including an additional fracture to the lower back and injuries to his left shoulder and hip.
“We acknowledge the seriousness of his injuries and that the claimant is likely to suffer some, even some relatively significant, ongoing symptoms as a result of those injuries,” he said. But he went on to say that secretly shot surveillance footage proves that Mr Greening-Steer has by now “made a reasonable functional recovery” and is exaggerating his symptoms.
“Liability is admitted, but the claimant has deliberately lied about and exaggerated the extent of his ongoing symptoms and their impact on him to deliberately inflate the falue of his claim,” said the barrister. Mr Greening-Steer has submitted a damages bill totalling £4,924,418, although some of his needs have still to be quantified, the court heard.
The defence KC argued this his claim is worth a fraction of that at £112,022, and should be struck out entirely. Mr Woodhouse said investigators working for the motorist’s insurers have accumulated secretly shot video footage which allegedly shows the reality of his mobility, and told the court: “His dishonesty has been present from the start of and throughout his claim.”
“It is submitted that the surveillance evidence unequivocally contradicts Mr Greening-Steer’s account of his disability and its impact on his day-to-day activities and ability to work,” he added. Neurosurgeons who examined the cooling engineer and assessed the surveillance video found that it established exaggeration of his symptoms, said Mr Woodhouse.
One statement said: “Conscious exaggeration is clearly depicted…I am strongly of the view that he is malingering to enhance the value of his claim”. The KC highlighted medical records suggesting he made a “reasonable recovery” during the first year after his accident, and was able to get back to part-time work, including driving a forklift truck, while still suffering “ongoing symptoms”.
But Mr Greening-Steer’s damages went against this picture of gradual recovery, submitted Mr Woodhouse, adding that he “claims to suffer very significant disability”. He complained about a range of restrictions and ongoing disabilities, the court heard, including problems standing up and “an altered gait with a dragging left leg, a plodding right leg and no arm swing”.
Mr Greening-Steer also claimed the need of a standard and off-road mobility scooter to help get around, as well as sometimes needing walking poles and a stick to help deal with his “limited walking range”. In court documents, Mr Greening-Steer recounted problems getting in and out of the bath, difficulties carrying things without spilling them and a generalised “debilitating fatigue”.
At the time of the accident, he was running a refrigerated trailer business, but the effect of his injuries ultimately made work impossible, he claimed. Despite making efforts to return to work, he “found he could no longer cope with it,” he claimed, and is now unlikely to go back to his job.
His injuries also caused “reduced manual dexterity” and he “struggles with buttons and laces”. He explained: “The principal challenges are physical disability, reduced balance, pain, fatigue, cognitive blunting, incontinence and emotional dsyregulation.”
The total sum sought includes individual heads of claim such as over £1.8 for lifetime care and assistance, £116,176 for holidays and £160,655 to pay someone to walk his dog for an hour each day. In court, he was quizzed about the basis for his £4.9million compensation claim and explained that he never uses a walking stick outside the house as he finds it “embarrassing”, and that he only resorts to a mobility scooter “when going out all day for long periods”.
“If I sit down for a long period of time, my left foot goes stiff and if I stand for a long time my leg will spasm,” he explained. He accepted telling a medic who examined him in 2024 that “he couldn’t go out when it was windy for fear of being blown over”, and is vulnerable to the wind as he lives near a cliff top.
He also accepted telling the doctor he couldn’t walk more than 100 metres without experiencing exhaustion and a burning sensation in his leg. Mr Woodhouse asked: “And you maintain that’s a true and accurate description of the distance you can walk?”
“I can walk a bit further now, maybe 150 metres. This was back then,” Mr Greening-Steer replied. Mr Greening-Steer was also confronted with the surveillance evidence filmed by private investigators on multiple occasions, which defence lawyers claim contradict claims that his walking ability has been badly impacted by his injuries.
The defence KC showed the court footage taken of Mr Greening-Steeer driving to a petrol station and filling up, claiming that when progressing to and from the car he “walked with a normal gait and with a normal arm swing”. Mr Greening-Steer said: “I can’t walk with a normal gait, it’s physically impossible.”
The engineer, who claimed difficulties with driving long distances, is then said to have returned into his two-seater Aston Martin and headed off on the motorway, travelling for 55 miles before the pursuing investigators allegedly lost sight of him because he was doing 90mph. “I don’t think I was doing 90,” he replied.
Mr Greening-Steer denies malingering, but if he is found to have been fundamentally dishonest in his claim, he could end up with nothing, despite the insurer’s acceptance that he suffered injuries. It could also result in him being handed the insurer’s lawyers’ bills for the defending his claim.
The trial continues.
