Disabled showjumper’s folic acid payout victory
She can claim from GP who didn’t tell mother to take supplement
A SHOWJUMPER born with spina bifida is in line for millions in compensation after suing her mother’s GP for failing to advise her to take folic acid while pregnant.
Evie Toombes, 20, said she should never have been born, arguing that if her mother Caroline had been told to take the supplement she would not have got pregnant when she did.
In a landmark decision yesterday, a High Court judge backed Miss Tombes’s claim, paving the way to a potential multi-millionpound payout.
Judge Rosalind Coe QC ruled that if Mrs Toombes, now 50, had been given different advice she would have delayed conceiving and had a ‘normal, healthy child’.
Miss Toombes, from Skegness, Lincolnshire, is a rising star in showjumping who hopes to compete in the Paralympics. She requires extensive care, including being by fed via a tube and up to three hours of physiotherapy a day. She also has limited mobility, with no feeling below her knees, and will increasingly depend on a wheelchair as she grows older.
She launched her ‘wrongful conception’ case against her mother’s former GP Dr Philip Mitchell last month, arguing that she had been ‘born in a damaged state’. The court heard Mrs Toombes saw the doctor at the Hawthorn Medical Practice in Skegness in February 2001 to discuss her plans to have a first baby.
Although folic acid came up in the consultation, she claimed she was not told by Dr Mitchell of its importance in spina bifida prevention. ‘He told me it was not necessary,’ she said.
Miss Toombes’s barrister Susan Rodway QC said Mrs Toombes would have paused her plans and started a course of folic acid treatment before trying to conceive if she had been advised properly.
Dr Mitchell denied liability and claimed Mrs Mitchell may have already been pregnant when she visited him. His lawyer Michael De Navarro QC told the judge he had given ‘reasonable advice’ about the desirability of folic acid supplements being taken.
He said it was his usual practice to tell prospective parents that 400 micrograms should be taken by those preparing for pregnancy and through the first trimester.
But Judge Coe yesterday ruled against the doctor and found Mrs Toombes was not pregnant when she went for the consultation. Her judgment said: ‘Had she been provided with the correct recommended advice, she would have delayed attempts to conceive.
‘In the circumstances, there would have been a later conception, which would have resulted in a normal healthy child. I therefore find that the claimant’s claim succeeds on liability.’
The case will return to court to decide Miss Toombes’s compensation unless a sum is agreed by the parties involved beforehand.
Her lawyers said the amount she is claiming has not yet been calculated but would need to cover the cost of her care needs for life.
After her birth in November 2001, Miss Toombes was diagnosed with a lipomyelomeningocele, a form of neural tube defect associated with spina bifida leading to permanent disability.
The condition arises when a baby’s spine does not develop properly and in Miss Toombes’s case it affects the nerves to her legs, bladder and bowel.
Official figures show that around six in every 10,000 babies are born with spina bifida.