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Newman Police recently attended a property to arrest a man for grievous bodily harm and Kidnap. On attending the offender’s property, five police officers were attacked by the offender’s dog.

Three of the five police officers have been serious injured, sustaining wounds to the hands and legs; one of the officers will potentially require a skin graft due to his injuries.

The offender has subsequently been charged with two criminal offences under the Dangerous Dog Act 1991
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According to sources from The Telegraph, a young mother in Wales who was fitted with the dangerous PIP breast implants containing industrial grade silicon has died after a suspected overdose which the Telegraph says could be related to the worries and fears over having the implants inside of her.

According to the report (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9227694/Young-mum-died-after-worrying-about-PIP-implants.html), 24 year old mother and civil servant Paige Goldup had been airing her fears publically over social networking sites and was quoted to have said how stressful the situation was for her and how she was worried about having to pay for removal and replacement.

The report goes on to say she was a loving mum with so much to live for, leaving her family both baffled and heartbroken as to how this has happened. She was found unconscious at her home and was taken to nearby Moriston Hospital in Swansea where she tragically later died. An inquest has been opened and adjourned whilst toxicology and other tests are carried out.
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The Commons Health Select Committee debated the question as to whether the PIP implants are actually classified as ‘unsafe’ remains unanswered. Two reviews are looking in to scientific evidence of any risk the implants pose, as well as assessing the regulation within the cosmetics industry, and also reviewing the reaction and steps that were taken following the notification that the implants were dangerous back in March 2010.

As many of you are fully aware, we have only really been finding out about all of this n the last few months – two years on from the initial notification!

The conclusions from the reports remain unclear. According to the Committee, there is “no evidence of likely long term negative health effects attributable to PIP implants.” However, the advice goes in to say that “the quality of evidence available does not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn.” Further research is therefore a requirement to confirm whether the use of the silicon in these implants poses any health risk to the victims who have them.
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Yes – the clinic director who said that women were simply being “whipped into a frenzy” and claimed that the PIP Implants were not unsafe is now having her own set removed, according to sources from the Daily Mail. Mrs Beryl Atkins, the director of the Transform clinic, one of the big users of the implants, said there was “no evidence in the UK that PIP implants could rupture or cause cancer.”

In January this year she said “I have had PIP implants for five years and I’ve never had any problems. We’ve used them on a number of women and we haven’t had any complaints. People are being told they rupture and cause cancer but in the UK there’s no evidence for that. As a result there’s a mass panic. We have had no ruptures though.”

She added “it seems wrong that women with PIP implants are being whipped into a frenzy even though there’s no evidence they are dangerous.”
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Since this whole scandal came to light, we have spoken to countless victims of the PIP implant problem and taken on a significant number of compensation claims over the last few months.

Our Specialist PIP Compensation Team have been growing increasingly concerned over the sheer number of people who are reporting that their medical groups and clinics have been treating them entirely inappropriately.

It’s fair to say that a good 99% of the people we speak to have all shared their horror stories of how their clinic has failed them in some way.
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Our Specialist PIP Implant Compensation Team bringing you the latest update

Having taken on a vast number of claims to date, we have had the opportunity to speak to many of the victims of the PIP Implant scandal. From those who simply want the implants removed as a precaution, to those who have been and are suffering from adverse reactions.

Despite the news from some health professionals and experts who say the potential dangers are inconclusive, we are seeing the effects on the front line – the effects on the women who are suffering with these implants.

As a quick refresher, the PIP Implants manufactured in France were largely manufactured with industrial grade silicon that is commonly used in the production of mattresses and pillows. This grade of silicon has never been safe for implants, yet the company behind the scandal chose to cut corners (and assumedly expenses!) and hide a whole eight years worth of fraudulent operations that have ended up putting the innocent victims in serious danger.
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After experiencing a brief ‘Indian summer’ in late September/ early October, the weather is now turning cold again and it surely won’t be long until we are reaching for those hats, scarves and gloves in preparation for the, if the past two winters are anything to go by, seemingly inevitable deluge of heavy snow and ice.

The past two winters of 2009 and 2010 are said to have been the coldest in the UK for over 100 years, so not many of us will remember many worse winters. The cold weather bought with it heavy snow and ice, which lead to a huge increase in accidents and resulted in extremely busy periods for personal injury lawyers, such as ourselves, who were inundated with new claims and advice enquiries.

But how easy is it to make a claim against a local authority for compensation following an accident as a result of snow and ice? Well, the answer is unfortunately not very easy at all and this is illustrated in the case of Rhiannon Pace V City and County of Swansea 2007. In this case the accident victim was injured in a Road Traffic Accident caused by black ice on the road. It was accepted by the Judge in this case that the accident was caused by the ice, however he ruled that the local authority had not been negligent. When considering this case, the Judge considered two questions, the first of which is: Was the local authority’s winter maintenance plan proper and reasonable?
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OK – so we’ve been covering the fantastic news that referral fees for claims, such as referrals through legal expenses insurance / motor legal protection where your insurers will ‘sell’ your details on to a third party solicitor for cash, which forms part of a government agenda to make the world of compensation claiming more efficient.

One of the other areas has been surrounding the cut of the legal aid bill and potential changes to the no win, no fee system. The gist and result of the whole idea will result in a reduction in the number of payouts, which I imagine is intended for the costs of insurance to lower; although I’d love to see the day the insurers pass on saving to the consumer!

But, back to the main topic, sadly, proposals in place involve shifting some of the costs of the no win, no fee system to the Claimant from the Defendant. We strongly oppose such a notion, as it will result in innocent accident victims having their payouts slashed to cover costs the Defendant, i.e. the person or party at fault for the injuries, will no longer have to pay the full amount.
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… sadly, its kicking off in a way similar to Jonny Wilkinson’s in England’s Rugby World Cup opener against Argentina last Saturday; in the wrong way!

My recent articles have centred on the fantastic news that insurer’s referral fees will finally be banned following a parliamentary plan to initiate the practice becoming an illegality in the (hopefully) near future.

We, as an independent firm of specialist personal injury lawyers, have always spoken out against the practice of referral fees. We firmly believe, and have seen evidence proving the fact, that referral fees not only add no value to the claim of an injured victim, but they have the potential to destroy it.
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OK – so over the last few months I have been praising former Justice Secretary Mr Jack Straw for exposing the insurance industries “dirty secret” that they are responsible for the exponential increases in insurance premiums by selling claims on to lawyers for pure profit.

When the insurance companies have been telling you that the increase in premiums as a result of personal injury lawyers and claims has resulted in increases of up to 30%, it transpired that this was largely a symptom of your own insurance company encouraging potentially scrupulous claims by pushing you in to making one so they can cash in on up to £1,000 for referring your claim. Even if you’re genuine, they’ll make you claim using their referral fee solicitor; not because they are doing you a favour, but because they get paid to pass your personal details around.

We have spoken out against this on hundreds of occasions, as we never involve ourselves in referral fees, and have advised many victims of the referral fee system to change lawyers as soon as they can after they have been subject to poor service levels and potentially low payouts because their referral fee solicitor is too cash strapped to act for them in the right way thanks to wasting a huge portion of their budget on paying the fee.
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