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Cyclist
awarded up to £5M - (02/10/03)
A cyclist from Northumberland, who suffered serious head injuries when he
was knocked off his bike four years ago, has been awarded damages up to £5m.
Richard Harrison, 35, was hit by a car near his home in Hexham on Monday 3 May 1999. The accident left him with severe brain damage, paralysis in his legs and arms and unable to speak coherently. But thanks to constant care from his family and friends, Mr Harrison can now swim, eat and drink unaided and has started to rebuild his social life. He was given up to £5 million compensation in an out-of-court settlement on Thursday.
It followed an interim compensation payment of
£450,000 in 2002 by the driver's insurers. The
latest will see a one-off payment of £1.3m and then annual payments of £180,000
for the rest of his life.The compensation is calculated to meet the cost of Mr
Harrison's ongoing medical and therapeutic care and could reach up to £5m or
more.
© BBC
Coroner calls for enquiry into Seroxat - (13/03/03)
Seroxat, the world's biggest-selling antidepressant, should be withdrawn while its safety is fully investigated, advises a coroner who recorded an open verdict on a man who killed himself within a fortnight of starting a course of the drug.
The Brecon coroner, Geraint Williams, said he would be writing to the Department of Health about his finding that Seroxat led to Colin Whitfield, 56, a retired headteacher, taking his own life.
"I have grave concerns that this is a dangerous drug that should be withdrawn until at least detailed national studies are undertaken," he told the court on Tuesday.
"It is my intention to write to the Department of Health and to the secretary of state to ask him to hold an urgent inquiry into Seroxat and consider whether it should be withdrawn from sale in the UK.
"I am profoundly disturbed by the effect this drug had on Colin Whitfield."
Evidence indicated that Mr Whitfield suffered a change of personality after starting to take the drug.
Seroxat, whose generic name is paroxetine, is in the class of drugs, with Prozac, termed SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. It has overtaken Prozac in sales. Both drugs are prescribed mainly by GPs. There have been several strongly contested legal cases in the US against makers of SSRIs after suicides among those taking the drugs over a couple of weeks, or even days.
Almost two years ago, the former SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) was ordered by a Wyoming jury to pay £4.7m to the family of Donald Schell, who killed his wife, daughter, baby grand daughter and then himself after two days on Seroxat - known as Paxil in the US.
In that case, evidence was given by a British psychopharmacologist, David Healy, the director of the North Wales department of psychological medicine, who was granted access to GlaxoSmithKline's archives. He found that a small number of volunteers in perfect health, who took part in early trials of the drug, had become very agitated or suicidal.
Dr Healy has given evidence to a number of coroners' inquests in the UK, including that over Mr Whitfield's death.
"A lot of people going into the inquest just know the person would not have committed suicide in the normal course of events. You get a sense of their utter bewilderment," he said.
Most coroners did not know about the controversy. Dr Healy wrote to 148 coroners in England and Wales, and also to the review of coroner services, which was set up after the Harold Shipman case.
Dr Healy advises that statistics on deaths of people on SSRIs be centrally collected.
He has also pointed out that suicide verdicts - which could be wrong in cases concerning the antidepressant - deprive relatives of insurance payouts.
GlaxoSmithKline insists the drug is safe, saying its experience with Seroxat involves "thousands of physicians, millions of patients and over 10 years of experience world-wide". It states that there is "no valid scientific research finding that Seroxat causes suicidal thoughts or acts".
Last year, the medicines control agency announced a review of Seroxat after growing concern about withdrawal symptoms and side effects.
Colin Whitfield, 56, was a retired headmaster. His wife Kathryn told Brecon coroner's court that he had never shown any inclination towards suicide.
He was prescribed Seroxat for anxiety, not depression. If his GP had thought he might be a suicide risk, it is likely he would have referred him to a hospital psychiatrist.
She said he was a loving father who would never have wanted to distress his family. Yet last autumn he locked himself in the garden shed and cut both wrists, while one of his daughters was sleeping not far away.
"I don't believe this was a conscious decision, I don't think it was an intentional act. There was no way he was in his right mind when he did that," she said.
"There was no note and no intent. Two days before he died, on his birthday when he was opening presents, he asked, 'What more can I ask for than my lovely family?' And on the night before he died he did and said three things that indicated he was planning ahead."
The suicide "didn't fit the picture of
who he was, and we have no doubt that it was the drug that caused him to do it.
He was a very caring, very protective father and husband. He would be hating
himself for what he has done to his family."
© The Guardian
£4M Payout for widow of man killed by asbestos (07/03/03)
The widow of an entrepreneur who started work as a 15-year-old butcher's boy and built up the world's biggest tyre retread firm from scratch, has won a record £4.37m compensation for the death of her husband from exposure to asbestos.
Lucia Farmer, from Derbyshire, the widow of Anthony Farmer, was awarded the compensation by Mr Justice Simon at Leeds high court after four former employers admitted liability for the death of her husband, who worked with asbestos in the 1960s and 1970s.
Mr Farmer, a former millwright and power station worker, developed symptoms of the malignant lung disease mesothelioma just days after he and his partner sold their tyre company, Tyre Technics, for £30m in 1998.
He died in August 1999, aged 47.
© The Guardian
£3M
for high-flier whose life was ruined by a cough (04/03/03)
A financial analyst who was left severely brain damaged after a routine
procedure at a private hospital to investigate a persistent cough is to receive
compensation of up to £3 million.
Christine Darley-Jones, 54, now requires 24-hour care and is fed through a tube.
After a nine-year battle for damages, her husband Anthony's case was settled at the High Court in London yesterday.
Mrs Darley-Jones, a former consultant with KPMG, was at the height of her career when she was admitted as a day patient to St Anthony's Hospital, North Cheam, Surrey, for what should have been a 10-minute exploratory examination under general anaesthetic.
She had been made a freeman of the City of London and was earning a six-figure salary as a freelance analyst with more than 1,000 leading names on her client list.
But within moments of being anaesthetised to allow a small camera to be passed down her throat, she suffered a cardiac arrest and was technically dead for 38 minutes. By the time doctors had resuscitated her, about 75 per cent of her brain was damaged as a result of oxygen starvation.
As a result, she can no longer talk, walk or eat and is being cared for at the British Home and Hospital for Incurables, in Streatham, south-west London.
The hearing was a victory for her 74-year-old husband Mr Darley-Jones, who had sued Dr Stanley Ling, the consultant anaesthetist, for medical negligence.
Road
authorities to be made to clear ice (23/03/03)
The Government has admitted a legal loophole means that highway authorities in
England don't have to clear ice.
But a spokesman said they are under a legal duty to clear roads of snow that is
causing an obstruction.
Cabinet Office minister and transport department spokesman Lord Macdonald of
Tradeston said the legislative loophole would be plugged when there was time.
Meanwhile the Highways Agency, which looks after motorways and trunk roads, was
continuing its "usual practice" of keeping these roads free of ice and
snow, Lord Macdonald added.
Road authorities were bitterly criticised last month when a sudden snowfall left
parts of the road system in southern England paralysed.
© Ananova
Teacher
who slipped on a chip wins £44,650
(06/02/03)
A TEACHER who slipped on a chip today won £44,650 High Court damages.
Carol Harper, 57, was on her way to supervise an exam when the accident happened
on a Stafford school's stair in May 1999.
She fractured a bone in her left ankle, was off work for a year and had to
retire. The judge said that the stairs should have been swept.
© London Evening Standard
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