AN ARCHAEOLOGIST has won a £114,000 payout after a mechanic kept her Porsche for 11 years – before dumping its stripped shell on her doorstep.
Oxford University academic Dr Penelope Horlick pranged her 1997 Porsche 911 Triptonic – worth £80,000 – while trying to avoid a pothole on a wet road in August 2010.
In the aftermath of the accident, which took place while Dr Horlick was picking her daughter up from college, the car would not start, and it had an oil leak.
She left it in the care of engineer Jagjiwan Jhally, who took the car into his Beckenham workshop, agreeing to repair it.
Dr Horlick repeatedly contacted Mr Jhally, 59, for an update, but the mechanic failed to return the vehicle, and she finally opted to buy an Audi as a replacement in 2014.
Despite repeated requests, Mr Jhally failed to return her car, which he said needed an engine rebuild, insisting that he had legal rights over it and seeking payment of his “storage costs”.
He presented Dr Horlick with bills totalling around £9,000.
Finally, in March 2022 – more than 11 years after it was handed to the machanic – the stripped out shell of the car was deposited outside Dr Horlick’s Kensington home.
Only the chassis – stripped of the engine, gearbox and other crucial parts – was returned, following the issue of legal proceedings, the court was told.
Now, after a three-day trial, Mr Jhally, trading as JJ Engineering, has been ordered to hand over £114,000 in compensation to the academic.
Dr Horlick, who specialises in the mid-Palaeolithic period and Neanderthals, is a veteran academic who has been a research fellow at Oxford University since 2003.
Her car is a rarity, being one of the last Porsche 911s made using an air cooled engine and labelled by one expert as a “wonderful touring car”.
Dr Horlick had relished taking the car she bought in 2008 out on the road, using it a couple of times a week when commuting for work in Oxford, Recorder John Halford said.
Following the accident, she sent it to Mr Jhally’s Beckenham premises for repairs, but years passed without the car being repaired and returned to its owner.
“Mr Jhally would repeatedly say the repairs were almost complete, but refused to give a definite timeline,” said her barrister Adam Smith-Roberts.
“As time progressed, he became more aggressive and Dr Horlick was afraid to push matters.”
In her evidence, Dr Horlick claimed Mr Jhally became “increasingly aggressive” when she urged him to return her car, and sent her abusive messages through her lawyers branding her an “attention seeker.”
Dr Horlick sued Mr Jhally for compensation for breach of contract and for conversion, a legal term meaning a failure to “surrender property to the rightful owner” when requested.
On top of having to buy a replacement vehicle, she claimed £5,000 damages for the distress caused by the loss of her “prized” possession.
But Mr Jhally countersued Dr Horlick for substantial sums he claimed to have spent on parts and repairs, also maintaining her case was time-barred because she left it too late to sue.
Giving judgment, Recorder Halford said the dismantled Porsche 911 was clearly Dr Horlick’s “pride and joy”, adding: “Nobody buys a Porsche to have a car – they buy a Porsche to have a Porsche”.
“The car had a particular value, given its status and performance,” he added.
“It was her evidence that she prized it and enjoyed driving it and she was deprived of the value of being a Porsche owner while the car was held by Mr Jhally even though she only used it for specific trips.”
Additional distress stemmed from the way in which Mr Jhally “deposited the car at her doorstep contrary to her express instructions”, said the judge.
“His increasingly derogatory comments about her only served to compound that distress,” he added.
Mr Jhally’s comments about Dr Horlick were “vicious” and unjustly “impugned her moral character”, said the judge.
The mechanic was further found to have breached his contract to complete the repairs within a “reasonable time frame”, which the judge assessed should have been a year from the time he took charge of the Porsche.
Dr Horlick had done her best to tolerate the delays, including giving allowance for Mr Jhally’s health problems and the fact that in 2014 he had served 11 months behind bars for conspiracy to commit an assault.
In terms of repairs, the mechanic had done little more than strip out the engine and carry out his diagnosis, the court heard.
“He didn’t complete the work with reasonable care and skill, indeed he didn’t complete it at all, although there is no significant criticism of the way he undertook his diagnosis,” said the judge.
Mr Jhally had agreed to continue working on the car and complete repairs in 2012 and four years later made the same pledge.
“He re-committed himself to that in 2016, but didn’t honour his commitments,” the judge noted.
Also backing Dr Horlick’s “conversion” claim, the judge said Mr Jhally had held onto the Porsche in the face of her repeated demands for its return.
“From 2016 onwards, she made serious and unequivocal requests for the return of her car,” he said.
“She had identified another engineeer to work on the car and wanted it released so that the work which was still necessary could happen.”
But Mr Jhally refused to deliver up the car unless various “stipulations” were met, and ultimately dumped the Porsche chassis on the street near her home, despite Dr Horlick’s requests that it be delivered to her new mechanics.
“Mr Jhally said in evidence that he had no choice but to return the car to her home, but I consider this made no sense whatever,” said the judge.
“It was clear that she wanted the car collected by (her new mechanics) or delivered to them by Mr Jhally.
“He had no right to refuse to release the car.”
The judge’s award comes to around £114,000, Dr Horlick’s lawyers revealed, although both sides must return to court at a later date to discuss issues such as interest on the damages, legal costs, and whether Mr Jhally should be allowed permission to appeal.
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