£150k bill for teen burglar’s family who sued after he fell

THE family of a teenage burglar left seriously injured when he fell through a roof during a school break-in have been left with a £150,000 legal bill after trying to sue the council for not doing more to secure the premises.

Thomas Buckett plunged 15ft to a concrete floor after friends dared him to jump on a glass skylight and sustained life- changing head injuries as a result.

A court heard the teenagers had broken into the school’s tuck shop before scaling the roof on a Sunday in May 2010.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Thomas, who was 16 at the time, and his mother Mandy claimed Staffordshire County Council should have done more to protect him – even though he was trespassing.

It was originally claimed Thomas climbed on the roof of Clayton Hall Business and Language College in Newcastle-under-Lyme to retrieve a football. But the court heard a police officer who investigated the break-in emailed the council, saying: ‘I have made the family aware that if any claims are made against the school, my report will show the school is not at fault.’

Judge Peter Main told Telford County Court: ‘There were few measures, reasonably achievable within the likely school budget, that it could have taken to prevent all acts of trespass outside school hours.’

He ordered the Buckett family to pay the council an interim payment of £150,000 in costs by May 4, a figure which could climb as high as £260,000 after further assessment.

TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesman Jonathan Isaby said: ‘It’s good to know that, despite our ever-creeping compensation culture, it is still possible for vexatious cases like these to be thrown out.’

The county council’s chief executive John Tradewell said defending the case was ‘about fairness to the taxpayer’.

The Bucketts’ lawyers did not return calls.