Blackhurst Budd win record payout from MOD
A Blackpool Law Firm has won a record payout for a soldier's wife, following mistakes prior to the birth of her twin boys.
Blackhurst Budd LLP, working on behalf of Lynne Steele, has won a £3.55 million settlement from the Ministry of Defence after army doctors admitted negligence.
Blackhurst Budd had fought the Army's lawyers for 13 years after Lynne's sons, Shane and Dean, suffered brain damage.
Warren Spencer, Managing Partner of Blackhurst Budd and the Lawyer on Lynne's case said: "When Mrs. Steele first came to see me in 1996, she explained the circumstances surrounding Shane and Dean's birth, and I was immediately concerned with the lack of treatment she received."
Lynne, at 30 weeks pregnant, had gone to the army clinic with stomach pains and despite the potential of premature labour, the doctor would not see her and tried to diagnose her from what a nurse told him on the phone.
Within five hours she was back at the medical centre about to give birth and past the stage when doctors could attempt to delay the delivery so that they could administer steroids to protect the unborn twins from brain injury.
Lynne was rushed to a civilian hospital where her sons were born brain damaged.
Warren said: "I was confident that the MOD had been negligent but the difficulty was proving that that negligence had caused the twins' disabilities."
It took them a year to respond to my first letter with a total denial. Two years later following the issuing of a Writ, they were still in denial."
By assembling detailed medical records and witness statements from medical professionals, Warren was able to prove that the army doctor had been negligent in trying to diagnose over the phone, there was no management plan in place for multiple or premature births and the Army failed to organise special care facilities.
He argued had Mrs Steele been given steroid treatment and taken to a special care baby unit, the twins would not have suffered irreversible damage, tearing apart an Army assertion they would have been brain-damaged wherever they had been born.
He said: "There were times when I thought this case would collapse but persistence, patience and belief have won through."
Read more about this case in the Blackpool Gazette.
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