Claimant’s evidence “inaccurate, unreliable and improbable”: Claire Toogood KC successfully defends Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS FT
On 13 September 2024, Dexter Dias KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, handed down judgment in a case in which the Claimant sued the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and her surgeon, Mr Behar, for allegedly failing to refer her to a colorectal surgeon upon her request and improperly inducing her to transfer to the private wing of the hospital, inter alia. The judge found for the defendants on all allegations.
The case turned on the credibility of the Claimant and the witnesses she called to support her case, who were her sister, mother and ex-partner. An unusual feature of the case was that the Claimant had posted online a five star review of Mr Behar shortly after her treatment describing him and the hospital as “amazing”. The judge found that the Claimant subsequently “reflected time and again about what had happened to her and how she had nearly died. The process evolved from a quest for answers into finding someone to blame. Mr Behar became the chosen target of the claimant’s unhappiness and trauma and the iterative process of visiting and revisiting these profoundly distressing events led to her misremembering her exchanges with Mr Behar in a way that resulted in a narrative that implicated him in serious breaches of professional duty. However, the narrative is inaccurate. It did not reflect what happened at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital between Ms Deakin-Stephenson and Mr Behar in November 2016 as supported by the contemporaneous documentation and the clear probabilities. Over time, and especially given that she initially had virtually no memory of events, the claimant has persuaded herself of a factually false narrative that directs the blame for her deterioration and near-death experience towards Mr Behar.”
The judge found that the Claimant’s false narrative was “adopted by those close to her and who wish to support her through their ties of loyalty and deep affection … the weight of evidence is not necessarily judged by ‘head count’.”
Claire Toogood KC acted for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust on the instructions of Sonia Morgan, Legal Director at Weightmans LLP.
The full judgment can be read here – Deakin-Stephenson v Behar and Chelsea and Westminster NHS FT [2024] EWHC 2338 (KB)
