A man has lost his motorcycle accident claim after he alleged the accident was caused by a bus.

Anthony Brookes was travelling down Scotsdown Road in Aberdeen on his way to work when the accident happened. He claimed that a bendy bus overtaking a line of traffic on the other side of the road caused him to swerve to avoid a collision and he crashed.

The scooter fell upon his leg in the incident and he has damaged nerve endings in his foot. He now uses the help of a stick to get around and cannot work in his job as a security guard. He recounts how since the crash, his wife has left him and he has gotten deep into debt.

He was attempting to claim £13,000 in compensation for the accident but the Court has ruled against him. It decided that it was satisfied that the driver of the bus had done nothing wrong, and that Mr Brookes could have easily slowed or stopped to avoid a collision.

Mr Brookes has expressed how he believes that he will struggle to pay his mortgage payments without the money and that he may become homeless as a result. His lawyers have informed him that an appeal against the decision would not be wise.

The family of a child who suffered serious injury at birth has won over £9 million pounds for their medical negligence claim.

Lewis Merrigan was born at Northampton General Hospital in the summer of 2002. Shortly before his birth, hospital staff failed to notice signs that everything was not proceeding as normal. His foetal heart rate dropped, causing him foetal distress. Because of these failings, Lewis was starved of oxygen and was born with brain damage as a result.

The brain damage he suffered at birth has had a dramatic effect on Lewis’ life. He cannot walk or stand, as he has little control over his arms and legs. He also suffers from epilepsy.

Earlier this week a compensation settlement was agreed at the High Court in London. The package agreed to will result in annual payments for the rest of Lewis’ life to pay for his extensive care requirements. The total compensation paid to the Merrigan’s is expected to rise above £9 million pounds.

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust had previously written to the Merrigan’s to offer its sincere apologies for the sub-standard level of care that Lewis received.

A pensioner whose passion for rollerblading has landed him in bother is having to pay injury compensation after crashing into a dog walker.

90 year old rollerblader Oliver Galsworthy was skating down a quiet track when the accident happened. He thundered into the bystander, injuring the walker’s neck, back and legs.

Oliver had denied liability for the accident, making sure the case was decided in court. He had claimed that the dog and owner had run directly into his path and could not avoid a collision. However, the walker’s account of the incident, backed up by several witnesses was very different. They proved that the pensioner was out of control on his skates and careered off of the path knocking the innocent dog walker into the air.

The Court awarded the dog walker £6,000 in compensation for his injuries. However it was noted that the pensioner – who lives entirely on a £97 a week state pension – would be unable to pay the money in a lump sum. Instead Mr Galsworthy was ordered to pay £5 a week. He plans to appeal against the court’s decision.

New figures released have revealed that the NHS spends on average £2 million pounds a day paying out medical negligence compensation to patients who have suffered at the hands of mistakes by doctors and staff.

There were 406 cases reported of serious untoward incidents during the course of 2009, which works out at a rise of 21% on the figures from 2008. Some of these serious incidents include surgery on wrong parts of the body and incorrect medicine being given. More worryingly was one case in which a patient had a hole drilled in the wrong side of his head.

The figure of 406 incidents can be broken down even further. They resulted from 115 mistakes in surgery and 212 cases of mistakes in the type and dose of medicine given.

There are quite obvious fears that cases like these could see the amount of compensation paid out by the NHS sky-rocket. It currently pays out around £769 million pounds in compensation a year, which averages at £2 million a day.

NHS Trusts are required to keep reports on such serious incidences and report them to regional bodies. However the worry is that many such cases are being swept under the carpet by staff worried of the consequences. The actual figure of incidences of patients safety being put at risk is thought to be more likely in the thousands.

A man from Bradford has had his whiplash injury claim rejected after a Judge decided he could not be relied upon to give truthful evidence.

Zamir Akram was involved in an accident with a van from Leeds Council back in the summer of 2006. The van crashed into his vehicle at a roundabout on Elland Road in Leeds. He claimed he suffered whiplash in the incident and went on to try and claim compensation for his injuries.

In total Mr Akram tried to claim £7,000 for damage to his vehicle, its contents and the cost of a hire vehicle. He also tried to claim around £2,000 for his whiplash injury, bringing the total in the region of £9,000.

The case ended up in court because although Leeds Council admitted liability for the accident, the strongly disputed the amount of money Mr Akram was trying to claim. They maintained that the damage Zamir alleged the vehicle had suffered was not consistent with the details of the accident.

It was also revealed that two weeks before this accident, Mr Akram had been involved in another car crash. He claimed in his medical report that he had not been injured it it, but it was made known that he had claimed £1,100 compensation for whiplash. He had also made five previous claims for personal injury resulting from accidents.

Mr Akram’s claim was thrown out by the court with the Judge claiming there were serious issues with the reliability of his testimony.

Jason MacIntyre was tragically killed when a Highland Council van drove into him while he was on a cycle ride on the A82. Jason was an accomplished cyclist who was the Scottish 25-mile time trial champion and was in line to represent his country at the next Commonwealth Games.

A fatal accident enquiry has deduced that the accident was in no way Mr MacIntyre’s fault. The outcome was that the accident was caused by the driver of the van failing to keep a proper look out of the road. He was fined £500 and banned from driving for 6 months.

It was recommended that Jason MacIntyre should have been wearing a helmet at the time of the collision and wasn’t. However, it was noted that even if he had of been wearing one, the nature and severity of his injuries meant that a helmet would not have saved his life.

Highland Council has also taken on board suggestions to build a traffic island at the junction where the accident occurred to stop vehicles from cutting the corner.

Mr MacIntyre leaves behind a wife and twin daughters. His family are seeking cycle accident compensation from Highland Council and the van driver for the loss of support from their breadwinner, husband and father. They are seeking in the region of £500,000 in damages.

A woman from Woodford Green has launched a compensation claim after she was injured after a water leak.

Karen Imber’s home was flooded a number of times in the first half of 2006. As a result of the leaked water, a patch of algae had developed on her drive. On July 4th of that year, she slipped on the algae patch and fell. She seriously injured her arm and back in the accident, rupturing three discs.

During the same period, a sewage pipe near her home was leaking and caused her gas and water main pipes to crack. The sewage gathered underneath Ms Imber’s home. She believes that the sewage caused her to develop a stomach ulcer and a gall bladder infection which required her to have the organ removed.

She is now taking Thames water to court to try and gain compensation for her injuries. She claims they were negligent as problems with leaks and cracked pipes were not resolved by engineers despite numerous complaints. Her home is currently undergoing repairs for the damage and Ms Imber is living in rented accommodation.

Inmates across the UK have launched dozens of personal injury claims over the last three years. Some of the claims included in this research just released are shown below:

-    £1,000 for a prisoner who hurt his back lifting slabs
-    £2,000 for a prisoner scalded with boiling water
-    £1,000 for a prisoner who injured his hand working in a shed

The most serious personal injury claim came from a prisoner who lost a toe after getting it trapped in a machine.

On top of these claims, up to fourteen prisoners tried to make claims after being assaulted by fellow inmates, by claiming that the authorities inside did not do enough to protect their safety.

The right of prisoners to claim injury compensation has been under the spotlight since it was revealed that Ian Huntley was considering making a compensation claim after being assaulted by a fellow convict. The then Home Secretary Jack Straw blocked that claim but as we can see many claims are not being blocked. Compensation paid to Scottish prisoners in the five years from 2004 to 2009 totalled over £4,000,000.

The Justice Spokesman for the Scottish Conservative party has blamed the increase of claims on the wish of prisoners to play the system and ‘try it on’. This he says is aggravated by the crippling boredom faced by prisoners, adding that the money spent this way could be better used elsewhere.

A man has received £1.4 million in motorcycle accident compensation after being knocked off his moped.

Keith Barker-Platt from Penge, Greater London, was seriously injured in the smash back in 2005. He was thrown from the moped after he was ran into by a car driver. He suffered severe head injuries and brain damage which have left him with serious problems living an everyday life. He has physical and cognitive problems which have taken away the independence he used to have. His wife Beverley now cares for him and he relies on her to move around. Keith had to spend six months in hospital recovering from his injuries.

He was awarded £1.4 million pounds in compensation from the insurance company of the other vehicle involved. The amount takes into account the severity of his injuries and the fact that he is no longer able to work. His wife and three sons received small payouts as recompense for the care they have given to their father since the accident occurred. Fifty nine year old Keith received the payout at the High Court in London last Monday after a decision by Judge Justice Eady.

Calor Gas Ltd has been fined £27,500 after a gas leak caused a cloud of flammable liquefied petroleum to form above the firm’s Essex terminal.

The company admitted breaches of health and safety regulations, after around 163 tonnes of LPG made its way into the atmosphere.

The gas, stored in liquid form in the pipes, managed to escape while a ship was unloading it to Calor’s Canvey Island site on the 27th October 2008. When it made contact with the ground, the liquid evaporated into a vapour cloud which settled above the site.

LPG is a highly flammable substance, which if ignited can cause serious explosion or fire. In a gas form it can have a volume of up to 250 times bigger than the liquid substance.

The HSE found that Calor Gas Ltd had not taken the appropriate steps to prevent the incident from occurring. They were also criticised for not informing the HSE about the gas in the atmosphere.

Health and Safety spokesman Peter Hornsby said: “This could have had the potential of becoming a catastrophic event. HSE will not hesitate to prosecute companies who fail to provide security to their staff and the public through neglecting health and safety procedures.”