Crash for Cash sentence

A driver targeted in a highly dangerous crash for cash scam has branded the jail sentence of one of the gang members as ‘pathetic’.
Self employed HGV driver Alan Ragless says people could have died when Tariq Mehmood and three others attempted to force his lorry to collide into the back of their car.

Mehmood received a 12-month sentence in January and accomplices Ansab Rizwan and Ihtisham Gondal both received suspended sentences and 180 hours unpaid work.

Nasser Khan was given a 12-month community order and 100 hours unpaid work.

The scam was only exposed because Ragless fitted front facing video cameras into his cab which recorded the men’s vehicles staging the collision.

Speaking after the men’s sentencing Ragless says he is pleased he took up Towergate Insurance’s offer to fit the cameras because otherwise he would have believed the crash was his fault.

But he adds: ‘I was told there would possibly be a custodial sentence, but I was assuming three or four years. It’s pretty pathetic.’
Ben Fletcher, head of operations at the Insurance Fraud Bureau, says: ‘Working alongside the Metropolitan Police, the IFB helped to build evidence against the four men convicted today. The sentences passed are testament to the insurance industry’s determination to help the police catch and convict fraudsters.’