A CROFTER who has lost a £500,000 bid for compensation against Highland Council says he is considering an appeal to the UK Supreme Court after the highest court in Scotland turned down his claim.
Iain Pocock of Cougie near Tomich in Inverness-shire had appealed against an earlier court ruling in favour of the Council who had denied liability for a serious knee injury he sustained when he tripped over a raised paving slab in Inverness on February 9, 2012.
The Inner House of the Court of Session rejected his appeal this week, leading Pocock to tell The National: “I am very disappointed at the outcome. I am considering my position.”
His only remaining course of appeal is to the UK Supreme Court, and the crofter said he was “definitely” considering going further, saying: “I am still in pain, especially in the cold weather and I will have to live with the damage for the rest of my life. This case is not done.”
During that earlier case, extracts from a BBC documentary and “surveillance footage” were shown that featured Pocock walking normally, though the crofter said he had not been filmed during periods when his knee was bad.
Medical evidence showed that Pocock had suffered a torn cartilage and sprained ligaments, but at the Appeal Court this week, the case turned on the height of the raised slab in Inverness’s Baron Taylor Street — a fault which Highland Council had been aware of but which was not repaired until after the accident.
The council’s rules were that any slab raised by more than 20mm should be repaired within seven days, meaning the slab would not have been raised when Pocock stumbled over it — Pocock’s case was that the slab was up by 28mm.
Lawyers for Pocock said Lord Clark had erred in the earlier decision “by giving too much weight to the significance of the roads authorities’ practices and codes.”
In her written judgement, Lady Paton wrote that Pocock’s lawyers had said: “The weight of the evidence, including the location at the city centre, the identification of the irregularity on two occasions, the roads inspector’s view that there was a trip hazard, the defenders’ roads policy with timescales for repair, the 21-day work order, and the fact that it was known that defects at that area could deteriorate rapidly, gave rise to an inference that the standard of care required of the defenders was to effect a repair in the time available before the pursuer’s accident.”
Highland Council roads inspector Yvonne Low had told the first court hearing that the height of the slab was less than 20mm.
Lord Clark had concluded that Pocock had failed to establish the key fact of his case — that the defect involved a height difference greater than 20mm.
Lady Paton said that Lord Clark said the road inspector was “left in no real doubt that if she had come across a hazard with a height difference of greater than 20mm she would have classified it as ... requiring repair within seven days”.
Lady Paton said that in relation to this witness to primary fact, Lord Clark was entitled to reach the views he did. She noted that Lord Clark concluded there had not been a breach of the defenders’ common law duty of reasonable care and in the opinion of the three appeal judges “he was entitled to do so.”
All three grounds of appeal were rejected and the question of expenses was continued.
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