Case: Southwark Crown Court
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Three football fans faked a crash so that 30 pals on a coach outing to a dog track could make insurance claims for bogus whiplash injuries.
The 30 Everton supporters put in their insurance claims after saying the coach they were travelling in had been hit by a car.
But the coach driver had felt nothing and became suspicious later when he saw passengers dashing across a dual carriageway to a nearby boozer.
The grand plan was further foiled when a text message was found from one of the ringleaders to another Everton fan stating: “Need someone to do a crash.
"Do you know anyone? Paying a grand.”
Ringleaders Ben Carberry, 21, Liam Gray, 26 and Kevin Hamilton, 36, all from Liverpool, pleaded guilty today to one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation at Southwark Crown Court.
The three men staged an ‘accident’ having hired a coach to take 30 passengers to Belle Vue greyhound stadium in Manchester from a pub in Bootle, Liverpool, on December 9th, 2011.
On the way to the track the coach driver, Paul Woodruff, was told to stop after passengers said he had crashed into a car on a roundabout.
Gray was in contact with law student Carberry, a passenger, who had arranged for Hamilton to deliberately ram the car into the coach, causing minor damage, at an earlier date.
All 30 passengers lodged personal injury claims with the insurance company which has a maximum pay out of £5,000 per person.
Micheal Hall, prosecuting, said: “This has been done in order to allow fraudulent claims for personal injury to flow from it.
“Whilst on the roundabout the passengers shouted to the driver to stop as he had a collision.
“Mr Woodruff found this odd as he neither felt nor heard an impact.
"Furthermore he felt it strange that the passengers had seen anything as the rear window is painted over with adverts and affords no view out of the back.
“When he got back on the coach the passengers said they did not want to attend the dog track as some of them felt ill.
“The passengers asked him to return to the Mons public house in Bootle.
“He found it amusing when, on arriving back in Bootle and disembarking, they ran across a dual carriageway and into the pub.”
The court heard how the group knew each other from travelling to watch Everton away matches.
Mr Hall said: “The central link between these suspects is Everton Football Club.
“The suspects seem to have become friends travelling to and meeting at their games.”
All three will be sentenced at a later date.
A fourth defendant Joe Hindley was found not guilty after prosecutors offered no evidence against him.
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