Barrister Profile

Profile

Specialises in all aspects of Personal Injury; Clinical Negligence and Professional Negligence.

Recommendations

"a dream team lawyer for several claimant solicitors"
- Personal Injury, Legal 500

"...is a popular silk, not only a good fighter but incisive"
- Personal Injury, Chambers & Partners

Appointments

2008 - Recently appointed CEDR accredited mediator
1999 - Recorder
1999 - A President, Mental Health Review Tribunal
1993-1999 - Assistant Recorder

Areas of Practice

Personal Injury

In the past year Robert has been involved in numerous personal injury cases for brain damaged and paralysed Claimants.

These include a claim for a male tetraplegic in his 30s which was settled for over £7,000,000 and was the largest personal injury claim against the Government ever.

He has also settled a claim for over £5,000,000 for an infant tetraplegic. Robert fought a long trial for a Claimant in a fatal accident matter involving safety on a motor racing circuit.

He has been involved in a trial which established important principles for the assessment of damages in the case of tunnel miners.

He recently acted in a case for a 17 year old tetraplegic which settled for several million pounds.

Clinical Negligence

Most of Robert's cases have been for Claimants and they generally involve cerebral palsied children. He was laterly instructed in a case which settled for a sum in excess of £2,000,000 and which involved the severing of the spinal cord of the Claimant by a neurosurgeon.

He was Leading Counsel for the Claimant in an extremely complex case which settled just before trial for a sum in excess of £2,000,000.

Robert is presently advising in a cerebral palsied infant case where the Schedule will run to a sum in excess of £7,000,000.

He is currently working on a, potentially high value, cerebral palsied infant case where it is alleged that there was a failure to respond to a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia.

Significant Cases

• Willemse v. Hesp - [2003] EWCA Civ 994 - (The judge had erred in calculating damages for future loss of earnings using a fixed multiplicand where the claimant had not been engaged in remunerative employment for four years prior to the road accident in which he sustained a brain injury, and his future employment intentions were uncertain)

• Sutherland v. Hatton; Somerset County Council v. Barber; Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council v. Jones; Baker Refractories Ltd v. Bishop - [2002] EWCA Civ 76 - (Having considered four cases on appeal, the Court of Appeal set out guidelines for courts dealing with negligence claims against employers in circumstances where claimants were forced to stop work because of stress-induced psychiatric illness. *Application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords pending)

• Hanley v. Stage & Catwalk Ltd (T/A Acorn Studios) & Others - [2001] EWCA Civ 1739

• Groom v. Dr Selby - [2001] EWCA Civ 1522 - (A claimant who gave birth to an "unwanted" disabled child as a result of her doctor's failure to treat and advise her appropriately was able to recover her economic loss arising from the additional costs occasioned by the disability)

• Assinder v. Griffin - LTL 25/5/2001 - (A claimant whose whiplash injury sustained in a road traffic accident left her in a permanent state of chronic pain was awarded damages totalling £708,243)

• O'Brien v. Harris - (2001) Lloyd's Rep Med 347 - (A claimant who had suffered serious orthopaedic injuries and brain damage as a result of a road traffic accident was awarded a total of £1,267,542 including interest)

• Chappell v. Imperial Design Limited - (2001) Env LR 593; (2001) Env LR 33 - (Although there were always real difficulties facing a party seeking to overturn an apportionment of negligent liability, the factual findings reached showed that although the claimant appreciated a risk of fire, he did not appreciate that his actions were likely to cause an explosion. Accordingly, the apportionment made was inappropriate)

Professional Membership

Member of PIBA, APIL

Education

St John's, Cambridge University (MA)
Manchester Grmmar School