She received more than pounds 4m.t A child who suffered brain damage after being given blood of the wrong type during a transfusion was yesterday awarded pounds 2.4m damages. For instance if he drops something on the floor he can’t pick it up,” she said. “It is not nice to say but it is like leaving a four-year-old child on his own. It is a danger and anything could happen.”The judge granted leave to appeal on the issues of liability and amount – which will be decided precisely after further discussions between lawyers. The court was told the award will be between pounds 8m and 9.25mThe previous highest damages award, in November, was to Helen Edwards, now 17, who was left brain-damaged, blind, and unable to feed or talk after she had a heart attack during an operation to remove a birthmark from her forehead.

Ken Chalk, a senior partner in the firm, said Mr Biesheuvel could have been earning pounds 500,000 a year had the accident not wrecked his career.Mr Biesheuvel’s girlfriend, Marieka Godding, 25, broke down last month as she told the court of constant care her boyfriend needs “There are so many things during the day he needs help with. “He allowed himself to be driven and continue to be driven by Mr Birrell when he knew or ought reasonably to have known that he … was driving at an excessive speed and or carelessly and dangerously.”But the judge, Mr Justice Eady, rejected the claim and said he was satisfied that the impact which caused Mr Biesheuvel’s injuries had started with an upward movement. After hearing from an expert, the judge said it did not seem to be seriously contended that a seat-belt would have made any difference.The court heard that prior to the accident Mr Biesheuvel had been due to take up a job with the City accountants Deloitte and Touche. His motor insurers admitted primary liability but disputed the amount of damages that had been claimed.At the High Court yesterday, Richard Davies QC, for Mr Birrell, argued that Mr Biesheuvel had been partly to blame because he should have realised that Mr Birrell was driving in a dangerous manner. Mr Biesheuvel was sitting in the back seat but was not wearing a seat-belt.The driver, Andrew Birrell, later pleaded guilty to dangerous driving. The money – more than twice the largest previous payout – will help pay for round-the-clock care and for “pain, suffering and loss of amenity”.
Mr Biesheuvel, who now lives in Amsterdam, was one of four Bath University students who were on their way for a game of football when they crashed into the rear of parked cars.

Martijn Biesheuvel, from the Netherlands, had been studying at university in Britain when he was injured in May 1994 Now aged 27, he has almost no use of any of his limbs. About 18 per cent had received reports of illegal drug taking.. A STUDENT left almost completely paralysed by a car accident was yesterday awarded record damages of up to pounds 9.25m at the High Court. They get fed up covering up for them,” she said.The survey of 1,800 personnel specialists found that 46 per cent of companies had received reports of alcohol abuse by staff during the past year, compared with 35 per cent in 1996. Intolerance of “substance abuse” ranges from people who have serious drink and drugs problems to those who go to the pub at lunchtime, says a survey conducted for the Institute of Personnel and Development.
“Ten years ago many people used to go out for a liquid lunch, but it is no longer as acceptable as it was,” said Oonagh Ryden, a policy adviser at the institute.Ms Ryden believes the growing tendency to tell management about colleagues’ drinking or drug taking is based on anxiety over people’s welfare and concern over the impact on work performance.”People have become intolerant of colleagues suffering from hangovers whose ability to do their job is impaired. At the end of 20 minutes everything seemed well but 20 minutes after that we got some communications that something had happened,” Dr Worth said.

“If we don’t make contact within a couple of weeks we can still make a rendezvous later,” she said.Near was scheduled to orbit the Eros asteroid for 12 months, mapping its magnetic and gravitational fields and analysing its mineral composition. Scientists had hoped to bring it within feet of its surface, even perhaps to attempt a soft landing.Nasa now has a difficult job trying to regain contact, although it has had the experience of recovering the errant Soho satellite earlier this year, which was lost for several months before scientists regained control.Near is one of the first Nasa robot craft built under a programme designed to emphasises less expensive and more effective ways of exploring the universe.. WORKERS ARE increasingly unwilling to put up with colleagues who drink during working hours and far more likely to inform on them than they used to be, according to a new study. We just have to find an avenue of communication.”The Near probe was launched in 1996 and has travelled about 1.5 billion miles on its indirect route to the Eros asteroid, which is about 240 million miles from Earth.Nasa lost contact early yesterday morning after attempting to fire the spacecraft’s rocket engines as part of the first stage in the sequence of rendezvous manoeuvres.Dr Worth said that the next 48 hours will be critical if the spacecraft is to make its rendezvous with Eros next month as planned, although a failure to regain contact in that time will not result in the mission being abandoned.One possibility is that the space probe had gone into a “safe” mode, which it is designed to do if it receives conflicting commands or detects something that should not have happened.”We think the spacecraft has shut itself down. The D-pot has a longer, wider, spout than normal for accuracy of pouring and a groove to stop drips. It was named after Damini Kumar, 22, from South Bank University, London, who came up with patented design after watching how rain drips down windows.. SCIENTISTS HAVE lost contact with a pounds 138m space probe designed to rendezvous with an asteroid the size of central London next month.