Crash victim awarded Elm compensation
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• A Cumbrian father of four, "appallingly" injured when a defective lorry jack-knifed into his path, has been awarded more than £950,000 damages by the High Court.
The smash left 47-year-old Maurice Bell blind, with no sense of smell and almost completely deaf.
His face was rebuilt using pioneering computer technology, the court heard.
In awarding Bell £956,303 plus his legal costs, Mr Justice McKinnon said he was an "entirely innocent victim" of the accident.
Bell, from Thornby, near Wigton, sued the lorry's driver, Gordon Kirkby, and his employer and the lorry's owner, Frederick Reginald Morris Skinner, both of whom are from Bournemouth.
The accident occurred on 10
May 1990 as Bell was driving his car along the A596. Skinner's lorry, which the court heard was defective, jack-knifed onto the wrong side of the road and into the path of Bell's vehicle. Bell, who had been a successful salesman for Britvic Soft Drinks, now needs his wife, or someone else he trusts, near him at all times to prevent panic attacks.
The judge said he had probably suffered "some diffuse brain damage" in the accident and had been totally robbed of his ability to "appreciate the world at a distance".
"He will be quite unable to return to any form of employment. He will never be able to achieve more than a very limited form of independence," the judge said.