Permission to seek injury compensation

A 23-year-old man who suffered profound and life-changing car accident injuries has secured the right to pursue compensation.

The young man, now wheelchair-bound as a result of the car accident, sustained a severe spinal injury as a passenger in a Range Rover driven by one of his friends in 2008.

According to the claimant's person injury lawyer, the claimant had taken his seatbelt off as the car approached his home only for the driver to suddenly accelerate.

The vehicle then collided with a van, flipping in the air in the process and landing on its roof.

Initially, insurers had attempted to strike out the compensation claim, arguing that the claimant should have known that the vehicle his friend was driving had been taken without authority.

However, during a hearing at a court in London, Mr Justice Stadlen delivered judgment in the claimant's favour, clearing the way his car accident injury compensation bid to proceed.

"[The claimant] did not know when he allowed himself to be driven... in the Range Rover that [it] had [been] taken unlawfully," said the judge.