Jail for NHS scammer filmed modelling in body paint while claiming £3m in compensation
A woman who claimed she needed a stick to get around while parading in fancy body paint in front of a festival crowd has been jailed and handed a £135,000 court bill for her “lies”.
Kae Burnell-Chambers, 44, claimed a mistake by NHS doctors left her with nerve damage that made it difficult to walk, get out of the car and even dress herself, and is suing for more than £3 million.
But in a video unsealed in the Supreme Court, the model and artist was seen posing and strutting along with other body paint models at the Kustom Culture Blast Off festival in 2019 while being painted like a fantasy warrior.
The video was shot months before he launched his compensation bid for a delayed diagnosis of cauda equina syndrome, a condition that involves damage to the nerves at the end of the spinal cord.
Although the condition was real, she later admitted to exaggerating her symptoms after social media videos emerged, revealing that she was working as an artist and performing as a model despite her alleged serious disability.
He was later taken to court by the NHS and Mrs Justice Tipples sentenced him to six months in prison for contempt of court and handed him a bill of £135,000 for the case for “lies” he told to “grossly inflate” his compensation claim.
Sending the tearful mother downstairs to begin her sentence, the judge condemned Burnell-Chambers for her “lies” and said video footage showing her modeling while claiming to be severely disabled was “devastating”.
“The fact is that you made a good recovery from this condition over time and deliberately chose to lie about your symptoms in order to make a very significant and dishonest claim for compensation,” he said.
Cauda equina syndrome is a disabling condition that results from damage to the bundle of nerves below the end of the spinal cord, known as the cauda equina.
Signs and symptoms include lower back pain, numbness, and pain radiating down the leg, but early diagnosis and treatment can lead to greatly reduced long-term effects.
Sadie Crapper, barrister for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, told the High Court at an earlier hearing that Burnell-Chambers, a fine arts graduate from Lincs, sued for damages in 2019 following a delay in treatment of her condition in 2016.
The lawyer said he attended medical and legal appointments complaining of “a range of disabilities”, needed help getting dressed and out of the car, and “had a labored gait and used a stick” when the doctor went to examine him.
But Ms Crapper went on to drop her claim in 2022 after social media videos and surveillance footage showed that the disability chart she submitted to support her claim was “fundamentally fraudulent”.
The crux of the NHS case was based on a series of social media videos showing him working as a body paint artist and model at a number of conventions and festivals across the UK.
The attorney said a video from Kustom Kulture Blast Off in August 2019 showed her “body being extensively painted and then paraded in a parade where she walked freely and danced without needing a walking aid.”
“By 2017 at the latest, he had recovered enough to return to body painting,” he told the judge.
“He always knew that he was attending these meetings, taking on this painting and modeling, and being able to walk through the images that are now available.”
He said it was an NHS Trust case that Burnell-Chambers “fraudulently exaggerated her symptoms for the purpose of claiming clinical negligence”.
Burnell-Chambers admitted that her condition varied and that on good days her mobility was almost normal, she exaggerated when she went to the medical-legal doctor.
“He has basically admitted to committing fraud” but still has “ongoing disabilities”, his lawyer Ben Bradley KC told the court.
Burnell-Chambers signed a confession admitting that she had “deliberately altered my submission” and that by doing so she had “deliberately interfered with the course of justice”.
When he saw some experts making the claim, he deliberately tried to show that he perceived his own function to be at its worst, without telling the experts that that was what he was doing.
Sentencing him today for contempt of court, Mrs Justice Tipples said: “You deliberately exaggerated and lied about your disability to present a picture of you as having a serious and continuing disability resulting from the trust and to grossly inflate your claim for compensation on a very significant scale.”
Refusing to suspend sentence, he added: “In my view, these factors and other mitigating factors are outweighed by the very serious nature of your insult, which is so serious that the only appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate imprisonment.”
The judge also ordered Burnell-Chambers, who is on benefits and “of limited means”, to pay £135,000 towards the NHS Trust’s lawyers’ bills.
