A disabled man from Gateshead has finally won his fight for compensation after falling from his wheelchair on council property.
Leslie Willans simply asked for his wheelchair to be repaired after the fall at Gateshead Civic Centre that knocked one of his teeth out and left him with a broken nose.
Gateshead Council didn’t accept the blame for the accident and are now counting the cost after being hit with a much bigger bill – £24,000 – after Mr Willans successfully sued them under the Disability Discrimination Act.
Mr Willans, from Gateshead, will receive £6,000 compensation plus legal costs of £10,000 and the council will also have to pay legal fees of £8,000.
He said that originally he had only wanted them to pay for the repairs to his wheelchair but they refused and so he decided to take legal action. He claims that the action he took was not about the financial compensation, and that he had simply wanted the council to accept responsibility and to do something about it.
He added that the council had been ‘aggressively defending’ the case, even appealing a previous court decision, and that although he was pleased, he was also angry that the council had wasted taxpayers’ money on fighting the claim when they could have spent it more wisely.
Mr Willans was diagnosed with MS in 1995. The condition has left him without the use of his arms plus speech and breathing problems, and he is fully dependent on his wife Leslie. In April 2008 he had been at a wedding at the Civic Centre, but on leaving the register office to head to the main car park he took a turn through bollards on the side of the main path.
He said that he had been determined to see the case through, despite being afraid of having to pay all the legal costs if he had failed.
Deborah Hill, Head of litigation at Gateshead Council said that the civic centre park was used on a daily basis by hundreds of people, including those with disabilities, and there had been no other similar accidents.
She added that the council had consulted widely with user groups when the car park and access route to the building were being designed, to make sure that it complied with standards set by the Disability Discrimination Act.
She went on to say that ease of access for everyone to the Civic Centre is of the utmost importance, but that it was impossible to anticipate the needs of every single person.
About the council’s defence of the claim, she said that they had taken specialist legal advice before proceeding because the area of law was relatively untested, and that they were disappointed with the outcome.
