High Court refuses late rewrite of car ownership account in KDP v TXL insurance recovery claim

The High Court has refused applications to withdraw admissions and substantially amend defences in a road traffic insurer's recovery claim arising from a fatal collision, in a judgement examining the limits of late attempts to abandon sworn factual accounts.

In KDP & Anor v TXL & Ors [2026] EWHC 2365 (KB), Master Stevens dismissed applications by TXL, the driver responsible for the collision, and his father, RXS, to withdraw admissions made in their original defences and substitute a materially different account of who owned and controlled the vehicle involved.

The underlying claims arose from a 2022 collision in Ramsgate in which TXL, driving while under the influence of drugs, struck a family group on a pavement, killing two people and injuring others. He was later convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, with TXL and his parents separately convicted of perverting the course of justice after removing evidence from the scene. The original personal injury and fatal accident claims were settled by the insurer UK Insurance Ltd, acting under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which imposes a contingent statutory liability on insurers to satisfy judgments even where a policy has been avoided.

UKIL subsequently brought a Part 20 claim under section 151(8) of the Act to recover its outlay from TXL and RXS. RXS's original defence, filed without legal representation, had admitted that he owned the vehicle and had given TXL permission to drive it. Nearly three years later, and shortly after UKIL issued a summary judgment application, RXS sought permission to withdraw those admissions, now asserting that the account was knowingly false and that the vehicle in fact belonged to TXL's wife. TXL sought parallel amendments supporting that revised position and reviving an argument, based on the Scottish decision in Ian Whyte v David Arthur [2025] CSOH 47, that UKIL could not recover from either of them.

Applying the test under CPR 14.5 for withdrawal of admissions, Master Stevens found no parallel with cases such as Woodland v Stopford or Moore v Worcestershire NHS Trust, where withdrawal followed genuine reappraisal of evidence by professional advisers. Instead, she found RXS had maintained a detailed and consistent account for over three years, with full knowledge since January 2023 that recovery might be sought against him personally, before admitting it was deliberately false. Drawing on Cavell v Transport for London and The Royal Automobile Club v Wright, she held that permitting withdrawal in these circumstances would cause serious damage to the administration of justice and undermine the reliability of statements of truth generally.

On the separate test for amendment under CPR 17, the judgement found the proposed factual case lacked any realistic prospect of success, noting that the fresh evidence relied upon was inconclusive and that TXL's own account of ownership had shifted at least three times across the criminal and civil proceedings. The Whyte authority was found to offer no assistance, since the relevant statutory exemption it addressed had since been repealed and did not apply to the circumstances of this accident in any event. Reliance on the Scottish and English case law concerning lateness and proportionality, including CIP Properties and Quah v Goldman Sachs International, further weighed against permitting the amendments given the absence of any adequate explanation for the delay.

The applications were dismissed, with the judgement noting that separate summary judgment proceedings remain outstanding.