Hampshire engineer Grant Greening-Steer accused of exaggerating injuries for £5m payout after motorbike crash

An engineer seeking £5m compensation for injuries sustained in a motorbike crash (including a £160,000 claim for a dog walker) has been accused of faking his symptoms.

Grant Greening-Steer, 51, claims he now needs a mobility scooter and is struggling with daily tasks such as tying shoelaces after the 2019 incident.

Mr Greening-Steer fractured his spine and suffered a “moderate to severe traumatic brain injury” when a car parked in front of his Yamaha motorcycle near his home in New Milton, Hampshire, in June 2019.

He claims these injuries left him unable to work and affected his ability to perform daily tasks such as doing buttons and laces.

But lawyers representing the other driver and his insurers claim secretly recorded footage proves Mr Greening-Steer was a “malinger” who “deliberately lied” about his condition to secure millions.

During High Court hearings, Charles Woodhouse KC, representing driver Derek Ainge and their insurance company, acknowledged the seriousness of the initial crash, which caused extensive physical damage, including a fractured vertebrae, a broken back and left shoulder and hip injuries.

“We accept the seriousness of his injuries and the likelihood that the plaintiff will suffer some, even some relatively significant, ongoing symptoms as a result of those injuries,” Mr Woodhouse said.

But he argued that surveillance evidence showed Mr Greening-Steer had since “made a reasonable functional recovery” and that he had exaggerated his symptoms.

“Liability was accepted, but the plaintiff deliberately lied and exaggerated about the extent of his ongoing symptoms and their impact on him in order to deliberately inflate the value of his claim,” the lawyer said.

The court heard Mr Greening-Steer submitted a compensation bill of £4,924,418, but some of his needs still needed to be determined.

KC, defending, argued that his claim had a very small value of £112,022 and should be dismissed outright due to the alleged lies.

“His dishonesty was present from the beginning and throughout the course of his claim,” Mr. Woodhouse said, explaining that investigators working for the driver’s insurance companies had accumulated secretly shot video footage that purported to show the reality of Mr. Greening-Steer’s disability.

“It is submitted that the surveillance evidence clearly contradicts Mr Greening-Steer’s account of his disability and its impact on his daily activities and ability to work,” he added.

Mr Woodhouse said neurosurgeons who examined the refrigeration engineer and evaluated the surveillance video concluded that his symptoms had been exaggerated, quoting a doctor who said: “Conscious exaggeration is clearly depicted… I am of the view that he was faking it to increase the value of his claim.”

The lawyer added: “The claimant’s dishonesty extended to every stage of the quantification of his claim based on the extent of the disability he suffered and the course of the disease.”

KC highlighted medical records that suggested he made a “reasonable recovery” within the first year after the accident and was able to return to part-time work, including driving a forklift, despite “ongoing symptoms”.

But Mr Woodhouse said Mr Greening-Steer’s claim for compensation clearly contradicted this picture of gradual recovery, adding: “on the contrary, he claims to have suffered a very significant disability”.

The court heard that, overall, he suffered from a range of limitations and ongoing disabilities, including problems standing and “alternating gait with dragging of the left leg, slugging of the right leg and inability to swing the arm”.

He claimed he needed a standard, off-road mobility scooter to help him get around, as well as sometimes needing walking poles and a cane to help cope with his “limited walking distance”.

In court documents, Mr Greening-Steer described problems getting in and out of the bathroom, difficulties carrying items without spilling them and experiencing a general “debilitating fatigue”.

He was running a refrigerated trailer business at the time of the accident, but claimed the effects of his injuries ultimately made it impossible to work.

Despite trying to return to work, he claimed he “realized he couldn’t deal with it anymore”, claiming he was now unlikely to return to work.

His injuries have also resulted in “decreased dexterity” and he “struggles with buttons and laces”.

“The main challenges are physical disability, decreased balance, pain, fatigue, cognitive blindness, urinary incontinence, and emotional dysregulation,” he explained.

The total amount sought includes individual claims such as £1.8 million for lifetime care and assistance, £116,176 for holidays and £160,655 to be paid to a person for walking their dog for an hour each day.

He was asked in court about the basis for his £4.9 million compensation claim and explained that he never used a cane outside the house because he found it “embarrassing” and only resorted to a mobility scooter “when going out all day for long periods of time”.

“If I sit for a long time, my left foot becomes stiff, if I stand for a long time, my leg spasms,” he explained.

He agreed to tell the doctor who examined him in 2024 that he “could not go out in windy weather for fear of falling over” and explained that he was vulnerable to the wind because he lived on top of a cliff.

He also agreed to tell the doctor that he could not walk more than 100 meters without experiencing fatigue and a burning sensation in his leg.

“And you think that’s a true and accurate description of the distance you can walk?” he asked the defense attorney.

“I can walk a little further now, maybe 150 meters. That was back then,” he replied.

Mr Greening-Steer was also confronted with surveillance evidence filmed multiple times by private detectives; defense attorneys argue that this evidence contradicts claims that his ability to walk was severely limited due to his injuries.

Defense KC showed court footage of Mr Greening-Steeer driving to a petrol station and filling up, and claimed he “walked with a normal gait and a normal arm wave” as he walked to and from the car.

“I can’t walk with a normal gait, it’s physically impossible,” Mr Greening-Steer said.

Shortly afterwards, the engineer, who claimed to have difficulty driving long distances, got back into his two-seater Aston Martin and set off on the motorway; He traveled 55 miles before pursuing investigators allegedly lost sight of him because he was going 90 mph.

“I don’t think I made 90,” he replied.

Mr Greening-Steer denies faking it, but if his claim is found to be fundamentally fraudulent, his insurer may be left with nothing, despite admitting he was injured.

This could also result in him being given bills for the insurance company’s lawyers to defend his claim.

The trial continues.