A serial fraudster has been jailed for four and a half years for staging at least 92 car crashes, which could have cost insurers millions of pounds.
And 24-year-old Mohammed Patel might have got away scot-free, if it wasn't for the sharp eyes of office workers near his personal 'accident hotspot' on the A34 in Cheadle.
In 2005, Bovis Homes staff first became suspicious about the number of accidents happening at the nearby Eden Point roundabout.
The prangs tended to happen in the same spot and were always at suspiciously low speeds - there was even something familiar about one of the drivers.
But far from being innocently accident-prone, Patel was deliberately staging £500-a-time crashes by slamming on his brakes. His clients - whose cars he was driving - would then make fraudulent personal injury claims, and even exaggerate the damage.
Finally, the game was up when staff photographed two crashes that took place just an hour apart, and passed their suspicions to one of the car insurance companies involved in the claims. AXA presented their findings to the police, who investigated alongside the Insurance Fraud Bureau.
"Patel was prepared to put lives in danger to make money," said sergeant Mark Beales, who led the police investigation.
"This abuse of the insurance claims system has implications for all law-abiding road users."
And that's not the end of it - Patel now faces proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act, along with his partner at the time, Ettorina Hay.
