Woman killed in gang’s car crash to earn insurance cash
A gang who killed a woman in a deliberate car accident was jailed on Friday as a court heard such “cash for crash” fraud costs motorists almost £2 million a day.
Miss Gill was careered into the back of the transit van Photo: Pixel 8000
By Victoria Ward
10:00PM GMT 15 Feb 2013
Baljinder Kaur Gill, 34, was the victim of a plot orchestrated by four Polish men who caused a crash in a bid to fraudulently claim up to £20,000.
The case was the first of its kind to cause the death of an innocent motorist.
Miss Gill’s family said they would never recover from their loss and said she was an “innocent victim of a cold-blooded and calculated incident”.
Noel Lucas QC, prosecuting, cited figures from the Insurance Fraud Bureau showing premiums are pushed up by such scams. Some 381 false claims are made daily, costing the motor industry £1.7 million.
Radoslaw Bielawski, Jacek Kowalczyk, Andrzez Skowron and Artur Okrutny had carefully planned the crash, Reading Crown Court heard.
Top: Radoslaw Bielawski, left, and Jacek Kowalczyk; bottom: Andrzez Skowron, left, and Artur Okrutny
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Two days afterwards, the men, all from London, made insurance claims in a bid to profit from the tragedy. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Sweeney said the men bore equal responsibility for Miss Gill’s death, which was the product of a “joint enterprise”
“This is the first such enterprise to result in a death to come before the courts,” he said. “The fact that it didn’t also lead to you getting any money is no thanks to you but because of the police investigation into this crash.” He said Miss Gill’s death continued to have, “an absolutely devastating effect on her family”, particularly her mother and brother who suffered the loss of her other brother to cancer shortly afterwards.
On June 11, 2011, the four men drove an Audi A3 and a VW Passat in tandem down the A40, remaining in constant contact by telephone as they looked for a vehicle that they could be confident was insured. The plan was to contrive an apparent accident in which it would crash into the back of the Passat and all involved could claim compensation.
A Ford Transit van, being driven in the fast lane at 70mph, was chosen as the target and Kowalczyk positioned the Passat in front of ahead on a stretch of the road near Denham, Buckinghamshire.
The men then staged a crash by swerving the Audi into the outside lane, forcing the Passat to brake hard.
Under cross examination, Bielawski described the manoeuvres as “suicide” and Kowalczyk admitted they were “highly dangerous”. Miss Gill, who had been driving her Ford Fiesta behind the transit van was careered into the back of it, becoming stranded in the outside lane.
She got out of her car and was reaching into the back seat to get something when she was hit by a Renault van travelling at high speed, driven by Colin Lee, 34. The crash was described by one witness as “an explosion of metal glass and dust”.
Bielawski, 24, and Kowalczyk, 32, were both jailed for 10 years and three months for conspiracy to commit fraud, causing death by dangerous driving and conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice.
Skowron, 25, was jailed for 10 years for conspiracy to commit fraud and causing death by dangerous driving.
Okrutny, 23, who was not present at the crash, was jailed for 12 months for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by providing false driver details after the crash and making a false statement to police about the incident.
Lee, from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for 12 months for causing death by careless driving, having been previously cleared by a jury of causing death by dangerous driving.
Miss Gill’s family said in a statement: “We hope that the result of these court proceedings will prevent any other innocent person being killed or injured on the road through the greed of others.”
