Judge dismisses man's €60k claim for damages after barrister brands him a 'liar'

“You are a liar and you have been caught out,” barrister Shane English told 32-year-old David Keane (pictured) after the Circuit Civil Court heard he had failed to disclose details of previous and subsequent injuries. Pic: Collins Courts

A man, who described himself as a senior director, has been accused of lying through his teeth in a bid to pocket up to €60,000 in damages for personal injuries at a car wash.

“You are a liar and you have been caught out,” barrister Shane English told 32-year-old David Keane after the Circuit Civil Court heard he had failed to disclose details of previous and subsequent injuries.

Mr English told Keane, of Castlegrange Avenue, Clonee, Co Dublin, he had deliberately misled the court from beginning to end, lying under oath and committing perjury.

Counsel’s claims against Keane’s evidence in court were echoed by Judge Jacqueline Linnane when she threw out his €60,000 claim for spinal injuries after allegedly having been struck by a car reversing out of a car wash at Littlepace shopping centre, Clonee.

“Had it not been for the intense cross-examination by Mr English, and the investigative prowess of Ennis solicitors for the defendants, this court and even Mr Keane’s own solicitors would never have known of previous injuries and damages awards he had failed to disclose,” Judge Linnane said.

The judge said Mr Keane had admitted having sworn false and misleading information in an affidavit on oath despite having been aware it was an offence to do so.

“We have discovered subsequent incidents where money was received and never disclosed even to his own solicitors,” Judge Linnane said.

“He refused to answer questions put to him in a forthright and direct manner and it was only under intense cross-examination by Mr English that we got some inkling of the truth.”

Judge Linnane awarded costs against Keane and suggested that solicitors should be wary of promoting future claims he might initiate.

She said discrepancies had been revealed in medical reports about the number of times he had seen his own doctor. He had referred to misleading information regarding medical attendances and other injuries as mistakes and errors.

“I see little point in referring this case to the Director of Public Prosecutions,” Judge Linnane said. “They have enough to deal with and none of these referrals are pursued.”

Following his cross-examination of Keane, Mr English told him he had lied through his teeth on oath both in the witness box and in a sworn affidavit and had deliberately misled the judge and his own solicitors.

He said Keane, who had a previous address at Deansrath Lawns, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, had gone to his solicitor the day after the Clonee incident before even going to his GP.

Seven weeks after the incident he had attended a garda station about the incident but refused to make a caution statement.

Garda William Sharkey told the court Keane had been wearing a neck brace and had acted as if he was still stiff from his injuries when he attended the station.

The court heard that despite sitting and walking around for about an hour after the Clonee incident Keane had been taken to hospital on a spinal board. He said ambulance men considered it routine once he had complained about his back pain.

He had sued the owner of the car wash, now out of the country, the owner of the car, a member of staff, who he had claimed had reversed from the car wash and the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland.