Personal injury news roundup: 7 days ended 2 July 2013:
Everywhere I go I’m constantly reading news stories about how the nation’s personal injury solicitors are to blame for spurious injury claims – enough already!
You know it’s not like there are these injury lawyers that just rove the countryside looking for idiots that are willing to pretend they’ve been hurt in order for them to run up their legal bills. Yes, there are some rather disreputable law firms out there but they wouldn’t get far without some particularly nasty clients – clients just like David Ribchester, a 31 year old man who tried to claim nearly £1 million in damages for a ‘wrist injury’ when he was actually just fine!
Ribchester was quick to claim that the injuries he sustained whilst on the job in 2006 left him unable to perform everyday tasks and even made it impossible to pick up his infant daughter. Meanwhile he was just a lazy, conniving bastard – and his insurers caught him in the act of trying to defraud them, filming him doing all the things he said he couldn’t do.
There’s good news, though: for his attempted fraud, Ribchester will be spending some eight months in jail now. It’s a shame he’ll be separated from his daughter but maybe he should have thought of that before trying to scam hundreds of thousands of pounds from his insurance provider! I swear some people.
You know injury lawyers do plenty of good as well; for every injury law firm representing a David Ribchester, there’s shedloads that are actually representing the interests of legitimately injured people who deserve every last penny of their massive settlements. A prime example of this is how one 17 year old teenage girl was awarded £4 million in the wake of a ghastly road traffic accident at the age of nine that left her wheelchair-bound.
The brave teen has been coping with her disabilities since that day, and even though she’s paralysed from a spinal injury and cannot breathe without a ventilator she has gone on to finish her AS levels. On top of that she’s looking to go into languages as a career once she goes on to university – and now that she has received this massive injury claim she’ll be able to do anything she wants, knowing that her medical needs will be met safely and reliably.
The teenager’s personal injury solicitor team was absolutely key in securing her the funding she so desperately needs. Surely you can’t argue that she was working with ambulance chasers now can you?