This Is Guernsey

By Nigel Baudains

A MULTI-MILLION-POUND personal injury claim began in the Royal Court yesterday.

Cyclist Manny Helmot, who represented Guernsey at the 1998 Kuala Lumpar Commonwealth Games, suffered severe physical and brain injuries after he was struck by a car while out on a training ride on 18 November 1998.

His guardians, mother Rose Helmot and Ken Jordan, are claiming £18m. from the driver of the car, Dylan Simon, his insurer, Tradex, and the company’s reinsurers.

Liability for the accident is not disputed and the company has offered to pay £5.3m. in compensation. The case is expected to last six weeks.

In his opening statement for the plaintiff, Advocate Gordon Dawes said it was rare for a case such as this to ‘go the distance’.

The court’s role, he said, would be to assess the level of damages.

Advocate Dawes said Mr Helmot had still been undergoing major surgery as late as July 2006 as a result of the accident.

He had permanently lost the use of his right arm, suffered constant double vision, was registered partially blind and needed 24-hour care.

He had spent 36 weeks in a UK hospital and the brain injury had impaired his judgment, his moods and his thinking.

He would never be able to work – even in a sheltered environment – drive, or ride a bike.

Advocate Dawes said the plaintiff and the defendant agreed on some points and not on others but they were ‘many millions apart’ on the issue of pecuniary damages.

‘How can one put a price on the injuries that this man suffered?’ he said.

He said the defendant would argue that a psychotic illness that Mr Helmot suffered from was the result of him being treated with a certain drug for a period prolonged enough to amount to medical negligence.

The plaintiff [Mr Helmot] argued that the illness was a product of the accident itself.

He told the court how Mr Helmot’s mother had been forced to give up her job as a carer immediately after the accident to look after her son.

In addition, the family home had been converted to cater for Mr Helmot’s requirements.

The court had to consider many things, said Advocate Dawes, including the cost of Mr Helmot’s needs to date, the money he would have earned, how much it would cost to look after him in the future, his pain and his suffering.

Mr Helmot was working as a taxi driver for Bluebird at the time of the accident.

He had planned to continue doing that while spending six months of each year riding for a French cycling team until probably 2006.

He was 28 at the time of the crash, he is 39 now and his life expectancy has been agreed between the parties at a further 40.9 years – five less than if the accident had not happened.

Advocate Dawes said a complex combination of the physical and psychotic problems that Mr Helmot suffered would dictate the qualifications of the people who would have to care for him in the future.

‘We cannot just take people off the street,’ he said.

Prior to the accident, Mr Helmot was an extremely personable, well-liked and popular individual.

Provision now needed to be made to buy, adapt, staff and maintain a care home just for him. It would need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for all permutations that may occur in future and might require the need to import staff from the UK to run it.

On a number of occasions, said Advocate Dawes, the defendant had chosen to have Manny Helmot and family members secretly filmed.

‘You could understand it happening once or twice, but this was several times,’ he said.

‘It was repeated surveillance.’

Mr Simon was banned from driving and fined after he was convicted of dangerous driving.

Neither Mr Helmot nor Mr Simon was in court.

The defence will open its case today.

Article posted on 6th October, 2009 - 2.30pm