Ex-soldier who brought £3m trench foot claim against MoD could face jail

An ex-soldier who brought a record £3.7m trench foot claim against the Ministry of Defence, saying he was left ‘waddling like a penguin’ could now face jail after video showed him dancing at a barbecue.

Brian Muyepa, 34, claimed ‘non-freezing cold injuries’ to his feet – sustained on duty – were so severe he had been rendered disabled.

But last October, Mr Justice Cotter dismissed his claim at the High Court, finding his case to have been ‘fundamentally dishonest’ due to him ‘hugely exaggerating’ his injuries.

Mr Muyepa was handed a £180,000 court bill for the case, but could now also be jailed after the MoD began a bid to have him locked up for contempt of court. 

Brian Muyepa, 34, claimed ‘non-freezing cold injuries’ to his feet – sustained on duty – were so severe he had been rendered disabled 

MoD lawyers told the High Court yesterday that 79 separate allegations of misleading statements and documents had been put forward, in an ‘egregious’ example of dishonesty in a court claim.

Mr Muyepa, who was based at Salisbury and denies any wrongdoing, initially sued the MoD for around £3.7m compensation – thought to be the highest ever damages claimed for trench foot.

The former Royal Artillery gunner’s case revolved around a promotion exercise in a cold water-filled tunnel in Sennybridge, Wales, in March 2016, after which he was left in wet boots for five-and-a-half hours.

He was later diagnosed with non-freezing cold injury, a disabling condition which is characterised by pain in the extremities and an oversensitivity to cold.

Most commonly experienced by servicemen, it was first noted in the trenches of Europe during the First World War, resulting in its more commonly used description as ‘trench foot.’

Following his diagnosis, it was recommended that he be protected from cold in future, but he was exposed again at Salisbury Plain in 2017, when he spent much of his time working outdoors on vehicles, he claimed.

His condition subsequently worsened and he was diagnosed as having ‘very severe’ cold sensitivity in his feet.

Claiming around £3.7m damages, but later dropping it to £3m and then £1.7m, Mr Muyepa told the judge that the injury had severely impacted on most aspects of his everyday life.

He almost always requires a walking stick, sometimes cannot get out of bed, suffers sleeplessness and often feels ‘like a prisoner’ in his home, he said.

My Muyepa had insisted that his injury left him so disabled that he was reduced to shuffling about and relying on a walking stick or his wife to help him get around. Above: The former soldier with his wife Racheal

He also claimed his walking gait was also affected leading to him waddling ‘like a penguin’.

But cross-examining him, MoD barrister Andrew Ward suggested that Mr Muyepa had told a pack of ‘lies’ to inflate the value of his compensation claim.

The barrister produced a stream of videos, taken from Facebook or from covertly recorded surveillance, which he said showed Mr Muyepa had ‘ramped up and exaggerated’ an ‘extravagant claim.’

In one video, Mr Muyepa could be seen in an apron, marinating chicken at a barbecue, while dancing around to loud music.

He was accused of lying to experts about his condition, but claimed he was not dancing enthusiastically, more ‘like a penguin, from side to side.’

At the end of the trial, Mr Justice Cotter found that Mr Muyepa had suffered minor genuine non-freezing cold injures during his army service and would have been entitled to damages of £97,595.33.

But he stripped him of that compensation and handed him a massive costs bill after finding that he had seriously exaggerated the impact of his condition.

‘He fundamentally and persistently transformed the claim by dishonest exaggeration,’ he said. ‘His dishonesty tainted the whole claim from the outset.

‘He deliberately exaggerated symptoms and functional limitations for financial gain.

‘He was dishonest from a very early stage and before the case was commenced.’

Mr Muyepa, who was based at Salisbury and denies any wrongdoing, initially sued the MoD for around £3.7m compensation – thought to be the highest ever damages claimed for trench foot 

The case returned to court yesterday after the MoD began an application to commit My Muyepa to prison for contempt of court.

But Mr Justice Cotter declined to hear the application, pointing out that he had found Mr Muyepa dishonest using the civil standard of proof and that the allegations would have to be proven to the higher criminal standard for contempt to be found.

‘The difficulty in this case is that the defendant admitted nothing – at no stage did he admit misleading the court, the experts or anyone,’ he said.

The judge gave directions for the hearing of the contempt application by a different judge at a later date.

If found in contempt, Mr Muyepa could face a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.