Former Amazon manager Paul McCann told us his side of the story after a judge branded him ‘fundamentally dishonest’
16:54, 27 Dec 2025Updated 17:40, 27 Dec 2025
Covert footage showed Paul McCann carrying items with both hands, but he felt the clips gave an unrepresentative view of his daily life
A former Amazon warehouse manager faced losing his home after a court claim against the tech giant ended in disaster. Paul McCann sued the multinational over a serious injury to his arm following a fall at the Swansea fulfilment centre.
The 62-year-old, from Llangynwyd in Bridgend county, lost the case after Amazon sent private investigators to covertly film him going about his routine. In light of their footage the Swansea county court judge ruled Paul had exaggerated his injury and was “fundamentally dishonest” – a finding he vehemently rejects.
Judge H James not only threw out his £124,000 claim but ordered him to pay Amazon £75,000 for legal costs and return a £5,000 interim payment from when the case had looked to be going in his favour. For the biggest stories in Wales first, sign up to our daily newsletter.
A charging order was placed on his house and his mental health plummeted as he expected he would be forced to sell in 2027 at the end of his fixed-rate mortgage. But when WalesOnline approached Amazon the firm decided to drop the charging order and its pursuit of costs.
When we broke the news to Paul he struggled to put his emotions into words. He and his daughter were “ecstatic” but he still felt anger over how Amazon had, in his view, “destroyed” him.
‘The pain was excruciating’
Paul McCann failed in his court claim against Amazon(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
Almost nine years have passed since the day Paul’s life changed. At that time he was an Amazon area manager who supervised workers at the Swansea warehouse.
The court heard he was standing in near-darkness in a loading bay at around 5.20am on January 10, 2017, when he was “accidentally nudged” by a colleague. This caused him to fall about two feet from a ramp, landing on his left hand.
Paul claimed the firm had been negligent in failing to fix a broken spotlight over the bay despite the issue being reported “several” times in the month before his accident. He also alleged a safety barrier had not been replaced after being removed months earlier due to disrepair.
“The pain was excruciating,” he said. “It was horrendous. I told my manager: ‘I think I’ve broken my arm.’ But no proper first aid was offered. They said there was no-one on site to give it.
“I had to drive home using my right arm to change gear and steer. My then-wife could see how badly injured my arm was so she took me to the Princess of Wales A&E in Bridgend.”
Paul McCann after his injury
Paul had suffered a serious elbow break and soft tissue injuries to his forearm and wrist. He would go on to have four operations but claims he still has very limited movement of his left arm and remains in “extreme pain”.
“It’s soul-destroying,” he said. “One minute you can do everything and then it is all taken away. I can’t go to the gym anymore, I can’t swim as I used to every day. I used to fish, I used to golf every week. I can’t do any of it.”
He believes the limitations suddenly placed on his life caused his crippling depression and the end of his marriage. His 31-year-old daughter moved in with him to help with basic everyday tasks.
In 2022 he was examined by an orthopaedic surgeon who gave a bleak outlook in his report. He noted that Paul would have even considered amputation of his left arm despite there being no guarantee this would “control his level of pain”.
“Mr McCann is dependent upon the assistance of his daughter for many aspects of daily living,” wrote surgeon Jon Wand at the time. “He cannot dress and undress independently. He is unable to get into the bath without assistance.
“He cannot tie up his shoelaces. He is unable to cut up food and feeds himself exclusively right-handed. He has difficulty doing up buttons. His daughter does the laundry, cooking, washing up, cutting his food, and does all the housework and shopping.”
Scarring to Paul McCann’s arm(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
Paul had returned to his duties at Amazon after four weeks of sick leave following his accident. He had further periods off work after each of his four operations.
There was tension at work as he felt pressure to fulfil “responsibilities that I couldn’t because of my arm”. He added: “Every day I would sit in the car park contemplating whether to go in – and I was a senior manager.”
He finally left the company in 2020 with a £32,000 severance package. But the court claim – which Paul had filed weeks after the accident – would continue until 2024 with a major twist coming in its final year.
‘We need to talk’
At an early stage of the case Paul had received a £5,000 interim payment to help pay his bills. Liability for the accident had been conceded by Amazon’s insurer, according to court papers from Paul’s solicitors.
But around two years ago Paul got an email from his solicitor saying: “We need to talk.” He learned Amazon had hired surveillance operatives to follow and film him doing activities like shopping and taking part in a parkrun – footage that would prove catastrophic to his case.
Paul McCann filmed jogging in a park
One of the pain experts who had examined him, Dr Ivan Ramos-Galvez, wrote a new report that cast doubt on the severity of the injury.
The doctor noted the footage showed Paul using his left arm to lift a crate of six bottles of water while shopping. “He is seen being able to lift his upper limbs above shoulder height,” wrote Dr Ramos-Galvez.
But he also pointed out Paul’s left hand appeared “floppy” when at rest. He concluded that he still believed Paul to have “painful symptoms” and restricted movement although “he may have exaggerated his disability to me in consultation”.
Another pain management consultant, Dr Mark Alexander-Williams, was more scathing. In his view the videos suggested Paul to be “noticeably more capable than he has said”, and able to “run, drive and shop in a natural, comfortable, bimanual way”.
Learning of the footage was “a kick in the nuts” for Paul. He felt it did not give “a representative view” of his daily life. It also made him reluctant to leave his home for fear of being followed.
Covert footage showed Paul McCann carrying items with both hands
“They have footage of me in Tesco picking up items. But I never said I couldn’t use my arm – I said it was very painful to use. I can’t fully straighten it and I take paracetamol, co-codamol, and ibuprofen just to get through the day.
“I’d been having pain in my chest and my GP said: ‘You need to get exercise.’ I’d gained three stone in the previous 12 months because I couldn’t exercise so my partner and I thought we would do a parkrun. That didn’t mean I could put weight on my arm.
“There was one clip where I had a stone in my shoe. I put my foot on a bench to take off the shoe and put it back on. They assumed I’d done my laces but I’d actually just tucked the laces in.
“I stand by every single claim I made about my injury. I think it’s a case of there being miscommunication between myself and the experts throughout the past seven years to the extent that these people think I can’t move my arm. I can move my arm – it’s painful.”
‘This has actually destroyed me’
Paul had claimed £124,000 in losses including for his care and his disadvantages in the job market. But Amazon argued he had been fundamentally dishonest – a concept introduced in a 2015 law aimed at deterring personal injury claimants from grossly exaggerating their difficulties.
The default position is that a judge should dismiss a claim if it has been tainted by fundamental dishonesty. It has become increasingly common for personal injury claimants to be hit with this allegation. One well-known Welsh case was that of Kirsty Williams-Henry, a young woman who was brain-damaged after a fall from Aberavon pier and was then found to have lied about the extent of her injuries – again with crucial evidence coming from private investigators who had followed her.
In Paul’s case Amazon’s solicitors successfully argued: “The overall picture is one of a claimant who has not given a fair presentation of his claim. The claimant has dishonestly sought to maximise the value of his claim… by lying about the extent of his injuries.”
Paul did not need to pay his own solicitors, who had taken the case on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, but after the judge ordered he pay Amazon’s costs a charging order was attached to his two-bedroom house in Llangynwyd.
Former Amazon area manager in Swansea Paul McCann(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
The order meant Amazon could take an £80,000 cut when the property was next sold. As long as Paul kept paying his mortgage he could stay there. But with his fixed-rate deal set to end in two years his financial adviser warned he would be unlikely to find a lender willing to overlook the charging order and offer a new fixed rate.
This would mean a rise to the much higher standard variable rate, which Paul said he would not be able to afford. His depression deepened at the prospect of a forced sale in 2027.
“I took an advance on my pension for a deposit when I got the house three years ago,” said Paul, who now works in health and safety training. “The value is about £200,000 but with my daughter owning half and Amazon taking £80,000 I’d have very little left after the sale.”
Paul, speaking before our inquiry prompted Amazon to make a U-turn, said: “Paying my mortgage each month has felt like I’m working for Amazon. I don’t sleep – I wake at 3am. This has actually destroyed me to be totally honest.
“I don’t take time off work but every single day I think about it. I’ve had some really dark thoughts over the past seven years.”
Paul was audibly emotional when we called to let him know Amazon would not be pursuing costs. “You do not realise how much,” he said, before trailing off.
He said it was “absolutely outstanding” news but it has not changed his opinion of Amazon. Paul believes the firm’s new stance was motivated only by an awareness of how it would look for a working-class man to lose his home so one of the world’s biggest companies could receive such a tiny amount relative to its revenue.
“They are money-oriented and I don’t believe they give a monkey’s toss about their workforce,” Paul claimed. “All I want is for Amazon not to treat people the way they’ve treated me.”
An Amazon spokesman said: “Following a review we confirm we will not be pursuing the matter further.”
If you would like to contact us about a court case or story we should be investigating email us at conor.gogarty@walesonline.co.uk