Mother Wins Record £3.55m in Negligence Compensation

Posted on Jul 02, 2009 
 

A 41 year old former soldier's wife has won a record £3.55 million from the Ministry of Defence after her twin sons suffered brain damage through medical negligence. 
 
Lynne Steele from Blackpool has been fighting Army lawyers for 13 years for the brain damage suffered by her twins, Shane and Dean, as a result of a bungled birth.  
 
In the past, the MoD had denied liability and had offered Mrs Steel a one-off payment of £50,000, but Mrs Steele's perseverance has paid off and the £3.55 million pay out is about to be rubber stamped by London's High Court, with 18 year old Dean receiving £1.9 million and Shane receiving £1.65 million.  
 
The case dates back to May 1991 when Lynne went to the medical centre at the army base at Fallingbostel, Germany, with stomach pains (her husband at the time, Corporal Mark Edwards, was on active service in the Gulf War). She was 30 weeks pregnant and was worried about going into premature labour. The doctor, Dr Ian Anderson, would not see her and instead tried to diagnose her from what he was told by a nurse over the phone.  
 
The nurse advised Lynne to go home and that the doctor could see her the next morning. However, within 5 hours Lynne was at the medical centre in active labour. By this stage, it was far too late for her to be given steroids to delay birth or to help her babies' health and she gave birth at a civilian hospital. The twin boys were born with brain damage.  
 
Lynne described her experience:  
 
"All I know is that in my hour of need when I needed treatment at 9 pm the night before the doctor did not turn out. I had had a baby before and knew what was happening. When I went back five hours later Dr Anderson was there. He was panicking. He came with me in the ambulance and kept his hands on my stomach trying to stop the babies from being born until we got there. The German civilian hospital team were great but there was nothing they could do to mend the damage done caused by the delay."  
 
The stress of bringing up two disabled children put a huge burden on the family and Mrs Lynne's marriage to Corporal Mark Edwards unfortunately broke up.  
 
After reading that babies born more prematurely than her own were born fine, and without brain damage, Lynne decided to seek legal advice when the boys were 5 years old.  
 
Her lawyer, Warren Spencer, began investigating what had happened during the birth and was able to get hold of the German medical records and get them translated.  
 
Mr Spencer was able to prove that Dr Anderson had been negligent in trying to give a diagnosis over the phone, without seeing Lynne, and that the Army had no management plan in place for premature or multiple births and that they had failed to organise special care facilities.  
 
Lynne's lawyer also built a case tearing apart the Army's assertion that the twins would have been brain damaged wherever the babies had been born and that the twins would not have suffered irreversible brain damage if Lynne had been given steroid treatment or the babies treated at a special care baby unit.  
 
The Ministry of Defence has now admitted that Dr Ian Anderson was negligent and that he failed in his duty of care to Lynne.  
 
After a successful end to Lynne's 13 year battle, she said:  
 
"What has now been achieved means that the twins will never have to be a burden on the State. They won't be benefits people being examined and assessed every years and undergoing a points system every time Dean needs a new wheel chair."  
 
Lynne's son Dean is unable to walk but can drive an adapted car and is studying computer science at college. His brother Shane is studying conservation at Myerscough Agricultural College, near Preston.