NT gymnast wins payout

$692k award after cricket hit ends Olympic dream

A TERRITORIAN whose teenage dreams to be an Olympic gymnast and helicopter pilot were shattered when a tennis ball hit her in the eye has been awarded almost $700,000 in damages.

Newbie Redding, then 16, was hit in the eye when she wandered past an informal game of cricket a group of boys were playing inside the clubhouse at Sydney’s Manly Life Saving Club in 2014.

Ms Redding, now 20, told the NSW District Court earlier this year she said to the group: “You guys should make sure you are careful here.”

The batsman, Scott White, hit the next delivery and the tennis ball being used in the game struck Ms Redding’s left eye, detaching her retina, as she was texting her parents to come and pick her up.

More than four years on, Ms Redding’s case against Mr White went to trial and last week Judge David Russell ordered he pay $692,000 in damages.

Ms Redding, now lives in Milingimbi and works a lowpaying job co-ordinating a community development program, and had previously settled a related claim against the club out of court.

The court heard before her eye was injured, Ms Redding had been a top gymnast and was a reasonable chance of making the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games team.

She also wanted to join the military as a helicopter pilot, although lawyers for Mr White said that was “unrealistic” given the subjects she had chosen at school at the time. Both dreams are now crushed, and Ms Redding has a “lazy” left eye with 97 per cent loss of vision and a 24 per cent loss of vision overall.

Judge Russell said Mr White could have paused the game while Ms Redding was nearby.

“All (he) had to do was to hold his hand up and tell the bowler not to bowl while (she) crouched down nearby attending her phone,” he said. “Even if the bowler delivered the ball the batter could have taken the option of not playing the shot.”

The payout ordered included $349,500 for noneconomic loss, which Judge Russell described as including the “great disappointment” of not being able to compete in high-level sports or pursue her chosen career.

Another $265,668 of the payout was to cover future loss of earnings.