Man sues for £1m ... over accident he had as boy, 8
A MAN who claims to have suffered brain damage after being injured playing on a farm as a child has gone to court seeking £950,000 compensation from his playmate’s parents.
Craig Anderson, 21, claims that farmers John and Antoinette Imrie did not do enough to prevent him injuring himself when he was eight years old.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh heard yesterday how Mr Anderson was playing with the couple’s son Ben, then aged six, at Hillhead Farm in Torrance, East Dunbartonshire, on June 28, 2003.
Mr Anderson, of Perth, told the court
‘I was trapped under the gate’
that he had been playing football in a field with Ben when the pair decided to herd sheep through a gate into a steading.
He said that as he climbed on to the first rung of the gate and lifted the chain from the metal post to open it, the gate fell on top of him: ‘I was trapped under the gate from head to toe.’
According to legal documents lodged at Scotland’s highest civil court, Mr Anderson is seeking compensation on the basis that the Imries had a duty to see that he as an eight-year-old did not suffer injury.
His lawyers claim that he has suffered a brain injury which affected his academic performance and his ability to form and maintain relationships.
Mr Anderson’s legal team also claim that their client’s alleged injury deprived him of having a professional career and that his earning capacity is now ‘seriously damaged’.
Mr Anderson, who works for a gardening business, told the court that he could not remember much about the accident.
He was taken to Glasgow’s Stobhill Hospital before being transferred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill and then to the specialist head injuries unit at the city’s Southern General Hospital, where he received care for three weeks.
His parents then wrapped him in ‘cotton wool’.
He explained: ‘Mum said I was delicate. I was not allowed to do lots of playing activities. Mum and dad were paying lots of attention to me. It was not what I wanted. I didn’t like to be trapped inside.’
The court heard that Mr Anderson was ‘fighting a lot with my younger brother Scott’.
He felt that his academic performances suffered as a consequence of being involved in the accident and said: ‘I was emotional because I was putting in the effort but was not getting the expected grades.’
Mr Anderson told the court he could not finish a college course because he was having ‘very severe’ headaches.
The Imries, who are represented by Kay Springham, QC, say they fulfilled all duties of reasonable care towards Mr Anderson, and that subsequently he did not seek medical help for headaches or any other condition relating to the accident.
They say the only problem noted was that he suffered occasional headaches.
He was discharged from further medical care in July 2004.
They also say that 12 months after the accident, Mr Anderson was examined at the Institute of Neurological Sciences and was thought to have ‘done well’.
They argue that he had problems with his academic performance before the accident and a professional career would have been ‘unlikely’.
There had been no reports after the accident of social or behavioural problems in school.
The proof, being heard before Lord Pentland, continues.
‘Putting in the effort’