Hats off to Guy Tweedy and David Mason, exemplary campaigners on behalf of Thalidomide victims

Hats off to Guy Tweedy and David Mason, two men whose campaigning on behalf of Thalidomide victims is exemplary.

Tweedy, a Harrogate businessman, has long campaigned on behalf of Thalidomide victims. A couple of weeks ago he continued his tireless representation of those whose lives were blighted by the drug by flying to New York to assist 53-year-old Mark Gizewski.

Mason's daughter, Louise, was born without arms or legs because of the drug. Ever since he has fought for compensation from the Thalidomide's UK distributor, Distillers. His story was told in last week's heartrending and yet inspiring BBC2 documentary, Thalidomide: The Fifty Year Fight. It is a story of remarkable courage and determination as Grünenthal, whose product was responsible for more than 100,000 babies in 46 countries being born with disabilities, fought tooth and nail against paying compensation to its many victims.

Gizeski's case

Gizewski suffered tragically because of Thalidomide. He was born with a number of deformities including dwarfism, scoliosis of the spine, severe deformity to his limbs and sphincter and bilateral radial club hands. He has the mental age of a 10-year-old. His learning difficulties are attributed to his having spent the first five years of his life in hospital.

Gizewski is a full-time wheelchair user. He is also a petty criminal and has served time in New York's Five Points Correctional Facility. Here, says Tweedy, US prison authorities have subjected him to physical violence and intimidation. Adding insult to injury, they have neglected his medical needs. Tweedy believes that Gizewski should be released on permanent parole. As he puts it, in this piece in the Harrogate Advertiser:

"Mark's case is one of the saddest I have ever come across in all my years' campaigning on behalf of fellow victims. Because of his learning disabilities he fell into the wrong crowd, and subsequently found himself on the wrong side of the law. His treatment in prison has been diabolical. His pleas for help and medication to ease his chronic pain fell on deaf ears and the injuries he sustained are truly shocking."

Tweedy previously campaigned for the release from a Filipino jail of William Burton, from Wetherby, who was jailed for 30 years in 1992 after being caught trying to smuggle 12lb (5.4kg) of cannabis out of the country. Burton has a Thalidomide-related condition, but thanks to the efforts of Tweedy, Thalidomide UK and other campaigners was granted a pardon in 2011 by President Benigno Aquino.

Thalidomide in context

To rewind and puts things in context, Thalidomide was manufactured in the 1950s. It was sold from 1957 until 1962. Initially used as a sleeping pill, its use morphed into an apparent panacea for pregnant women suffering from the effects of morning sickness. Tragically, though, it caused many different forms of birth defect.

The drug was withdrawn from sale in 1962 after the link between its use and deformities - including shortened limbs, blindness, brain damage, missing sexual organs and missing internal organs - was conclusively proved. But as if its victims had not suffered enough, the past 50 years have been a different kind of battleground.  The German manufacturer of the drug, Grünenthal, only recently managed to issue a public apology to Thalidomide victims.

Tweedy is himself a Thalidomide victim. His work on behalf of other victims has been exemplary. While this week sees him in the United States trying to help Gizewski, earlier this year, in January, he was in Brussels lobbying the EU Health Commissioner. He presently sits on the Council of the estimable Thalidomide Trust. Its work on behalf of Thalidomide victims is excellent.

Mason's courage

As the BBC2 documentary revealed, Mason kept going when others would have crumbled. He knew something was wrong when the doctor in the delivery room came out and asked – "With no congratulations or anything" – if he could have a word. Mason strode past him to see his wife and his baby daughter. As he put it: "And there was just a – torso, with what appeared to be little flowers where her arms and legs should be."

Mason refused a derisory offer from Distillers. It was a deal that was ethically unsound: everyone had to sign it, or no one got anything. Mason's refusal, on principle, meant that the families of other victims took against him. So, too – extraordinarily – did his own solicitors, petitioning to have him removed as Louise's guardian.
But Mason was unbowed. With commendable help from a number of quarters, including the Sunday Times, he pressed on. Eventually Distillers came up with £300m for the 300 children still involved. It was accepted. No wonder Louise calls her father "a hero".

Your support is needed

Tweedy has already begun lobbying the American Ambassador in London, New York State Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schuner, and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. He told the Harrogate Advertiser, of his trip to New York, that he is determined "by the time I leave for home he will have a parole date set. Giving up is not is my nature - American prison authorities will come to understand this."

As a personal injury lawyer I can only admire and commend Guy Tweedy's fantastic work. Likewise, I can only stand back in awe of Mason's great and relentless courage.

And I can urge my colleagues in the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers to pick up the baton, do likewise, and pledge to help Thalidomide victims wherever possible.

Rob Landman steps up to CEO role at Spencers

Tomorrow sees a change at Spencers Solicitors. I'm delighted to announce that Rob Landman takes the helm as the firm's CEO. Rob's appointment means that I'm taking up a new role - that of Chairman.

Rob steps up from his previous role as Chief Financial Officer, a position he has held with great effectiveness since 2008. In that time I've seen Rob work with such consistent excellence that he has scotched a prejudice that I admit I once harboured: that CFOs do not make for CEOs.

Rob has demonstrated, time and again, that he is much more than just a numbers man. Yes, he has implemented a number of financial strategies that have driven significant cost savings, but more importantly he has shown a superb, holistic understanding of the dynamics of the legal profession and the intersection of the personal injury sector and Spencers' own role in it.

Robert Landman - Spencers Solicitors CEO

As a fellow board member for many years, Rob has been a vital player in the development of the firm's strategy, helping to re-orientate Spencer's resources and talent to face the modern legal landscape. The firm is now in great shape to pursue a specialisation into the most serious personal injury cases, as well as maintaining its core PI work and building on both a local Derbyshire presence and its national reputation.

Tomorrow, then, sees an important change at Spencers. It's one that I'm excited about, even if it is inevitably accompanied by the difficulties we all experience when letting go of the reins. Letting go isn't always easy. The time has to be right and it is for our practice as well as for me.

Rob needs to be free to be the CEO; he won't prosper if I'm forever on his shoulder, as opposed to being available to him and the practice to succeed. The transition to Chairman is liberating and exciting for me, too. It will further free me up to focus on public policy development, whether through APIL, the Civil Justice Council, or otherwise. One of my abiding passions is ensuring that government policy is not inimical to justice, whether for the individual, groups of people or businesses. As Chairman, I will be able to bang this drum - one which is, happily, in completely in sync with the firm's strategy and vision.

I am looking forward to continuing to work with Rob in our new respective roles. I hope to give valuable input when it's needed, but it is Rob is responsible to drive our practice forward. Rob is wholly committed to Spencers' belief in putting duty before profit, is the perfect man for the CEO role, and will, I am sure, excel in it. I wish him all the best as he steps up into the role tomorrow.

Thoughts on whiplash on the eve of the Expert Witness Institute conference

Tomorrow I will be attending the Expert Witness Institute (EWI) Annual Conference at Church House Conference Centre in the heart of Westminster. This year’s Conference is themed around the implementation of Lord Jackson’s reforms in April 2013. The reforms have long been in the offing, and it’s no exaggeration to bill them – as do the EWI event organisers – the ‘Big Bang’. Lord Faulks QC’s ‘view from the House of Lords’ of the reforms should be particularly interesting.

But if April 2013 is set to yield seismic changes to the civil litigation landscape, I hope that the same isn’t true when it comes to our treatment and sympathy for whiplash injuries. As I have noted before, an unruly bandwagon is being piloted by an alliance of insurers, government and certain newspapers to convince us that whiplash is an invented condition. If the bandwagon isn’t stopped, it will career into whiplash victims and ruin their ability to obtain redress.

I hope to raise this issue at the conference, especially when I join EWI director Nick Addyman, EWI fellow Dr Keith Rix and Brian Gardner FRCS in a ‘medical breakout’ session. We’ll be debating topics dear to our hearts; the prejudice against whiplash is certainly one of mine.

However, before reiterating some of my beliefs about whiplash, perhaps I should first make clear that there is common ground here. I and other claimant PI lawyers agree with insurers that there is an opportunity for fraud in the current system. So, too, do we agree that fraud contributes to the rising cost of motor insurance. We also welcome the government’s wider interest in the motor industry and the myriad of factors that could contribute to lowering the cost of motor insurance, including education, training and monitoring for new and young drivers. 

But the myth that whiplash is not a genuine injury has got to be scotched. Whiplash is real and there is a wealth of evidence that demonstrates its potentially debilitating impact and long-term consequences.  The government’s proposal to increase the small claims limit in personal injury cases from £1,000 to £5,000 cannot but have a devastating effect on whiplash victims. It should be remembered that this idea was consulted on at length and rejected by the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that it would stop genuine accident victims from receiving justice.

Moreover, reducing legal fees to an artificially low level – as is also mooted – may have the unintended consequence of lowering the quality and standard of representation in whiplash cases. It could also lead to legitimate claimants having to fight for compensation without legal representation, therefore eroding access to justice.

Finally, imposing an arbitrary accident speed (e.g. 15 miles per hour) below which a claim cannot be made has little medical foundation, as serious injuries can occur even in low speed collisions. In addition, satellite litigation and unnecessary costs may be generated by arguments over evidence of exact speeds. One can well imagine endless and costly debate over whether a claimant was driving at 15mph or at 14mph. Technology such as telematics could have a role in reducing fraud and bringing down the cost of motor insurance in the future, but it is not a panacea. These schemes are currently unproven and cannot be relied upon as an absolute measure when all circumstances and individuals are different.

So much for the laments. Do we, I hear you ask, have any solutions? We do. Take a look at the 10-point plan for eliminating fraud produced by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. Some of APIL’s ideas overlap with mine, which appear below:

• There needs to be better co-operation between all affected parties to clean up the sector. We need a holistic approach involving government, insurers, the car industry, accident victims, medical professionals and legal professionals.
• There should be compulsory medical examinations. No whiplash claim should be settled without a medical examination. In other words: no medical, no damages. This would help to reduce fraudulent or exaggerated claims.
• There must be robust regulation of claims management organisations. This would reduce the negative impact they have on the industry.
• Better enforcement of data protection legislation is desperately needed. This would prevent the misuse of customer data, which concerns consumers and brings the industry into disrepute. It would also curtail the use of unsolicited marketing to encourage people to take up fraudulent or exaggerated claims.
• Better regulation of insurance companies is needed to stop sharp practices such as third party capture (pressuring claimants to settle before the case has been fully considered).
• The sector needs to work with medical organisations to develop better knowledge and understanding of what soft tissue injuries can be caused by motor accidents and to ensure that medical examinations and reports are substantive and objective.
• There must be continued improvement in vehicle safety to reduce and prevent head and neck injuries.

I’d be delighted to discuss any of this at tomorrow’s conference, or via comments to this blog.

Britain’s dock workers shouldn’t have to rely on a Brando figure

Of all manual labour jobs, working in a dockyard might be the hardest. I say this because a friend once spent a summer working in Exmouth docks in Devon. He was exhausted by the end of every day. Sometimes his hands and wrists were cut by what he was unloading – he especially he hated fertiliser bags. But there was no alternative; my friend couldn’t just stop and invoke health and safety legislation. It was a case of either getting on with whatever he had to do, without complaint, or losing his job.

That was some 25 years ago. Society has come a long way since, and Britain stands proud as having the best health and safety at work record in Europe. Employers no longer resent provisions in legislation such as the Healthy and Safety at Work Act 1974. The majority now accept that they have a duty of care to look after, as far as possible, their employees’ health, safety and welfare while they are at work. For all that the tabloids sometimes assert that this means that it’s impossible to change a light bulb without performing a risk assessment, there’s an undeniable upside: our working environments are, for the most part, safe places to be.

It’s with some concern, then, that I read about proposals by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to axe rules which are specific to dockyards. There is more about this on the website of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. In a nutshell, the HSE proposes that regulations which are specific to dockyards, such as ensuring ladders are in place as a means of escape if workers fall into the water, are to be scrapped and replaced with ‘guidance’.

The measure is in keeping with the present government’s obsession with cutting red tape. I object to red tape as much as the next man – if it’s unnecessary and counter-productive. But I’m very worried when I see ‘red tape’ being cut in a dangerous working environment like a dockyard. The words of APIL president Karl Tonks are salutary: “Five times more dock workers die than the national average for workplace deaths so the last thing the port industry needs is weaker safety measures.”

It’s impossible not to agree. Working in a dockyard is tough enough without stripping workers of much-needed health and safety protection. As ever, what is required is a full and considered appraisal of existing rules and regulations and a holistic approach to whether they work or not. I very much doubt that this has been undertaken; once again, it seems as if the government is looking for sound bites in the tabloids rather than properly assessing a given situation.

In 1954, years before my friend had his summer stint in Exmouth docks, Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront was released. The film chronicled corruption in New Jersey’s dockyards, with former boxer Marlon Brando famously taking on the mob boss, and winning. Great though it is, On The Waterfront depicts a lost era, one in which health and safety at work was as fanciful as rain in a desert.

We’ve come a long way since. What we don’t want is our dock workers having to rely on a Brando figure to secure their rights. I urge a rethink of the HSE proposals and due consideration of whether their implementation might not ultimately have tragic consequences.