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Nurse vows to fight on
A NURSE who suffered a severe knee injury on a British Airways flight has vowed to continue her battle for compensation.
Beverley Barclay, of The Chestnuts, Abingdon, lost her fight at the High Court last monthFebruary, where Judge Laurence West-Knights accepted BA's argument that she had not suffered an accident while getting into her seat of a jumbo jet at Phoenix airport, Arizona.
However, the 49-year-old has appealed the decision, which will be heard at the Court of Appeal this summer.
Mrs Barclay, who works part time as a nurse at St Mary's Convent in Wantage, and also lectures at local colleges, said she was fighting for the principle of the matter.
She wants compensation of £24,400 from BA.
She said: "I am not out to get money from BA, it is the principle of the matter, that I sustained an accident on board the aircraft but they are basically saying it wasn't an accident. I am not out to get millions and millions of pounds from BA, that is not my intention."
So far Mrs Barclay's travel insurance company has covered the estimated £25,000 court costs.
She said: "My barrister has given me a 67 to 75 per-cent chance on winning, which is very high.
"He is very confident and I have nothing to lose as the damage has already been done, as regards my knee." Mrs Barclay spent four days in hospital with her injury, following the incident in August 2005. It is likely that she will have to go back for more surgery.
The mother-of-three had just boarded the Boeing 747 bound for Heathrow, when she slipped on a plastic strip while getting into her seat.
She suffered a serious ligament injury to her right knee and claimed compensation from BA under the 1999 Montreal Convention - which makes airlines liable to passengers who suffer "bodily injury" in an "accident" on board an aircraft.
The only issue in the case was whether what Mrs Barclay suffered was "an accident" within the meaning of the Convention.
Judge West-Knights accepted BA's arguments that it was not, and that what Mrs Barclay had suffered was a "mere fall", for which the airline could not be held liable.
However, he gave Mrs Barclay some hope of eventually winning her case when he said that in his view, the law relating to the definition of "accident" in the Convention had "taken a wrong turn".
He said that the law, as it stands, appears "unduly to limit what is an accident, and needed to be nudged back on track by the Court of Appeal".
6:15pm Tuesday 25th March 2008
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