A British court has ordered Lance Corporal Michael Mantey, a former soldier who is of British-Ghanaian descent, to pay back £70,000 after it was discovered that he had lied about his health. Mantey had taken legal action against the UK Ministry of Defense, claiming that he had sustained a foot injury while on deployment in Estonia. However, investigators caught Mantey on camera walking without health aids, leading the court to rule that his claims had been fundamentally dishonest.
The court, presided over by Judge Mr Justice Eyre, found that Mantey had misled the ministry despite initially presenting genuine examination. The judge said that Mantey had deliberately reported false symptoms in order to enhance the value of his claim, and that such conduct was dishonest. The court found that Mantey had suffered a minor injury, from which he had fully recovered at some point before September 2021. Despite this, he had portrayed himself as having a more serious injury which had a continuing and disabling effect, doing so for financial gain.
Mantey had initially claimed that his injury caused him to lose his mobility, and that he had to wear multiple layers of outerwear to visit his doctors. However, the judge found that Mantey had misled the ministry and that his conduct had tainted the whole of the claim. Mantey had responded positively to treatment, resulting in an improvement in his health. Despite this, he continued to claim that he experienced mobility issues.
Mantey, who joined the British Army in 2019, had taken a legal action against the UK Ministry of Defense for £1.6 million. The court ordered him to pay back £70,000 after it found that his claims had been fundamentally dishonest. Mantey had provided a witness statement in which he stated that he had indeed experienced mobility issues, but the court found that his conduct was dishonest and that his claims had been substantially inflated.
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