Circumstances of accident
At the time of the accident, Tom was working as a Police Officer. He was a passenger in a Police van when it was struck from behind by another vehicle and as a result, Tom suffered a neck injury.
How we helped Tom
We notified a claim to the insurers of the driver of the other vehicle involved. They admitted liability but there was a problem. About two weeks after the accident, Tom aggravated his neck injury in arresting a suspect. The insurers argued that most of Tom’s ongoing neck symptoms were caused by the arrest rather than the accident. We instructed an orthopaedic expert, whose opinion was that without the initial road accident, the arrest would only have led to a temporary neck injury and so it was the accident rather than the arrest that had caused his ongoing neck problems. We then raised a court action and eventually persuaded the insurers to pay full compensation. We agreed a settlement which was worth some £80,000 in today’s money.