To “swinging the lead” and “pulling a fast one” we can now add “throwing a Christmas tree” as a euphemism for trickery or deceit after a court in Limerick in Ireland dismissed Kamila Grabska’s £650,000 compensation claim for injuries sustained after a car accident in 2017. She had claimed that the injuries to her back and neck were so disabling that she had been unable to work for more than five years or play with her children.

The diligent claims investigators of the insurance company expected to open their cheque book, however, found a photograph of the claimant in a national newspaper throwing a five-foot spruce at a charity event in January 2018 to such good effect that she won the ladies section of the Irish International Christmas Tree-throwing championship held at Ennis in County Clare. The feat convinced the judge, who considered it to be “a very large, natural Christmas tree and it is being thrown by her in a very agile movement”, that the defendant’s claims were grossly exaggerated and threw the case out.

A costly Error, indeed.