Injuries Direct - Personal Injury Claims

A Birmingham businessman who was allegedly threatened by a member of British Airways staff at Heathrow airport has lost his claim for compensation.

Mohammed Nazam, 50, claims he was told by a BA customer services manager that he would be kidnapped in his native Pakistan when he disembarked the plane if he did not stop arguing with him.

Mr Nazam was due to travel to the Pakistani capital Islamabad with his wife and two children because of a ‘family emergency’. However, whilst they were checking in a glitch on the computer system meant the process was delayed; which ended up causing them to miss their flight.

An argument broke out with BA staff after they told Mr Nazam that he would have to rearrange his travel arrangements for the next day. He told workers, including the BA customer services manager that the delay had not been his fault.

Mr Nazam said: “We continued arguing and he told me he was a ‘proper guy’ in Pakistan. He said that as soon as I got off the plane he could have me kidnapped and that he had big connections over there.

“It was shocking, this man was supposed to be helping me and sorting out my flight, and there he was threatening me.”

Now, British Airways are refusing to refund the £2000 cost of the missed flights and are dismissing any of the allegations against them.

A spokeswoman for the airline said: “The customers who were flying to Islamabad in July 2008 had not fully completed their details and when these were completed it was too late for check in. We offered to re-book the family on an alternative flight, however this offer was refused. The customer became abusive and as a result we refused him further travel.”

Mr Nazam, who is still pursuing a full refund from the company said: “What they’re saying is nonsense – I want my money back.”

A fraudster who staged crashes in order to help car owners make insurance and compensation claims has only been ordered to pay back £1 of the money he scammed.

Instead, the girlfriend of jailed Mohammed Patel will bear a much larger brunt of the damage.

Ettorina Hay was ordered to pay £12,953 after it was deemed that Mr Patel did not have sufficient assets to repay the amount that he had made from car insurance policy holders.

It’s believed that Mr Patel made £46,000 from staging low-speed crashes in Manchester - £35,000 of which had gone to paying for Ms Hay’s lavish lifestyle.

Following his arrest, police found many expensive goods at the home the couple shared, including a large plasma TV, leather sofas and designer clothes. It was also shown that his antics had paid for holidays abroad and her general living costs.

Two cars registered in Ms Hay’s name were auctioned by police – a Mercedes C180 and a Lincoln Navigator for £11,416 whilst £536 was recovered from her Bolton home. She was ordered to pay the remaining £1,001 within three months.

Mr Patel, who is currently serving a four-and-a-half year prison sentence, caused crashes by braking suddenly at roundabouts when another car was following him. He used a claimant’s car, leaving them to go on to make claims for personal injury compensation, legal fees and other expenses.

A number of compensation claims have been made against the pushchair manufacturer Maclaren because children keep injuring their fingers on their buggies.

The British-owned company could face paying out millions of pounds in personal injury compensation to parents of children, who have had their fingers trapped in the hinges on the sides of the buggies. Some babies and toddlers have even had the tops of their fingers completed sliced off.

It was believed that there were only problems with the American batch of the buggies, but now many parents in Britain are coming forward to report problems with their own.

The compensation claims in America seem to have acted as an incentive for angry parents in the UK to come forward with problems against Maclaren.

Maclaren have said: “We are making every effort to establish the exact nature of the incidents. Our impeccable safety record means there are zero injuries when a child is properly fastened into the buggy.”

Two people that survived an almost fatal car accident are going to be awarded a substantial amount of personal injury compensation from the driver of the vehicle that hit them.

Minh Lac, Phil Ly and Duc Duong, who are all from London, were travelling in a car that was being driven by Mr Lac. The car crashed and veered off the road, it skidded along a diesel spillage and went into a central reservation. At this point there was no serious personal injuries, however, upon inspection of the damage to the vehicle a further vehicle that was being driven by Mr Frederick Clayton also skidded on the diesel spillage and collided into the other vehicles.

Mr Doung was killed instantly in the road traffic accident and his widow made a claim for compensation.

Mr Clayton’s legal team claimed that the group of drivers that drove into the central reservation should have retreated from the damaged vehicles and stood in a place that was safe and free of oncoming traffic. Therefore, Mr Clayton’s legal team stated that the injured party and Mr Doung should be held partly responsible for the road traffic accident. However, the judge disagreed with Mr Clayton’s plea and said the injured party were not liable.

Lady Justice Smith, Presiding has commented on this case and said:

“These men had been shaken by the collision and people who have just been involved in accidents cannot be criticised for not exercising fine judgement,”