Drug dealer hurt in crash could win £1m pay-out thanks to EU
A DRUG dealer seriously injured in a car crash is in line for a taxpayer funded pay- out thanks to EU laws.
Sean Delaney was a passenger in a speeding £80,000 Mercedes when it ploughed into a car carrying a family of five.
He was carrying a stash of cannabis and was allegedly on the way to a drug deal when the accident happened.
The Department for Transport has been fighting his compensation claim on the grounds that he was injured while committing a crime, but yesterday lost its final appeal.
It must now pay Delaney’s legal costs, thought to be in the region of £250,000, as well as compensation for his injuries which could be more than £1million.
Delaney was being driven by a fellow drug dealer, Shane Pickett, who was speeding and driving erratically when he smashed head on into a people carrier in Warwickshire in November 2006.
As a result, Delaney suffered life-changing injuries and spent three weeks in a coma. Pickett, who suffered a broken pelvis and ribs, was found with a small package of cannabis in his sock and tested positive for the drug, while a block was found in Delaney’s jacket.
Pickett was jailed for ten months in 2007 for dangerous driving and possessing cannabis. No action was taken against Delaney, probably because of the severity of his injuries.
The family in the other car, Peter and Lisa Houston and their three children, all suffered serious injuries, including broken bones, but were awarded only £20,000 between them.
Delaney, of Bedworth, Warwickshire, then tried to claim compensation for his injuries from Pickett’s insurers.
However, they invoked an exception, enforced by the Motor Insurers Bureau, that bans compensation being paid to those who ‘knew or ought to have known’ that a vehicle in which they are travelling is being used ‘in the course or furtherance of a crime’. Dela- ney’s lawyers then sued the Secretary of State for Transport, claiming that this ban violated a 2009 EU directive that does not allow any exclusions for compensation for victims.
In 2011 the Court of Appeal found against Delaney, but in June last year, the High Court ruled in his favour, saying the Department’s breach of EU law was ‘so serious that ... it must pay compensation to Mr Delaney’.
The DfT appealed the decision, but yesterday three senior judges unanimously rejected the Government’s appeal, and ordered the DfT to pay £138,000 legal costs to Delaney’s solicitors within 14 days. The amount is only the first instalment on Delaney’s legal costs bills which are likely to exceed £250,000.
The DfT said it was ‘disappointed by the ruling, and was considering petitioning the Supreme Court. A spokesman added: ‘We have a zero tolerance approach to dangerous driving and will continue to contest any decision which unfairly penalises the British taxpayer.’
Delaney’s solicitors, Bakers Personal Injury Solicitors, did not respond to requests for comment.