A High Court judge ruled Friday that a Sri Lankan man who overstayed a student visa in Britain, then sued the Home Office for more than £7 million claiming immigration detention had destroyed his mental health, had “deliberately fabricated or grossly exaggerated his symptoms” with his partner. Home Office inquiry agents filmed him driving and doing hour-long gym sessions while he insisted he needed lifelong round-the-clock care. He was even caught enrolled in a go-karting competition.
Vengadeswara Raw Gopalakrishnan entered the United Kingdom in 2010 and overstayed after his student visa expired in 2012. An asylum claim the following year failed. He was detained from September 2013 to February 2014 and was granted indefinite leave to remain — the right to live in Britain permanently — in 2023. He then sued over the detention, saying it left him with a serious psychiatric injury, psychotic symptoms until 2023, and ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder that would require round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. The claim for damages was “put at over £7 million.”
His partner, Reena Mathew, acted as his litigation friend — making court decisions for someone said to lack mental capacity — and was presented as his carer. They have been partners for more than a decade and have three children. In April she told the court his health had improved only “ever so slightly” and that he could not cook, leave the house alone, or manage his finances.
But inquiry agents filmed him in May and June driving, working out for an hour at a time, taking his children to school, and eating in restaurants. Online records even showed he had taken part in a go-karting competition, while departmental records showed he was working as a delivery driver. After the footage was produced, Mr Justice Mansfield said there was “no explanation for the inconsistencies.”
“The claimant has deliberately fabricated or grossly exaggerated his symptoms, in collaboration with Ms Mathew, for the purposes of pursuing a claim for damages put at over £7 million,” the judge said. “The sums claimed were based on a fabrication and were without basis.”
Mansfield described 12 years of court time and public funds as “scandalous.”
“The story of the complete destruction of the claimant’s life as an independent adult would be tragic, and the story of Ms Mathew’s devoted care for him would be inspiring, if any of it were true,” he said. “By the standards of ordinary decent people, the claimant’s conduct in bringing and pursuing a claim for damages based on fabricated or exaggerated symptoms was dishonest.”
He ordered Gopalakrishnan to pay all of the Home Office’s costs.
