Teenager sues car driver for £50,000

THREE of the country’s most senior judges are grappling with the case of an Oldham teenager who was nine when he was hit by a car while playing football in the street.

Malachi O’Connor’s case raises crucial issues on the extent to which children should be expected to look out for themselves and the standards of safety required of motorists.

Malachi’s lawyers say driver Colin Stuttard, also from Oldham, could have avoided the accident had he stopped when he saw him beside the road with a football, or at least sounded his horn.

But Mr Stuttard insists that is a “counsel of perfection”. His legal team says he did all that could be expected of a careful driver and was in no way to blame for Malachi’s injuries.

Malachi and other youths were having a kick about in Clay Lane, Oldham — a quiet cul-de-sac often used for ball games by local youths — when he was hit on April 28, 2001.

He was on the opposite side of the road from his friends when he kicked the ball against a wall and took a step off the kerb, where his left ankle was run over by Mr Stuttard.

Malachi, now 18 — who was left permanently disabled by devastating fractures to his calf and ankle joint — is suing Mr Stuttard for up to £50,000 damages.

The teenager had his claim dismissed by Judge Armitage at Oldham County Court last year, but he has taken his battle to the Civil Appeal Court in London.

In clearing Mr Stuttard of negligence, Judge Armitage had said: “This is not a case of a ball rolling into the road, putting a driver on notice that a child might well follow it”.

It was only a “remote possibility” that the youngster would step backwards and Mr Stuttard had done all that was required of him by “proceeding slowly” down the road.

But Malachi’s barrister, Terence Rigby, told the court Mr Stuttard —who was driving his Rover Saloon towards a car park in the street — should have done more to avoid the collision, either stopping completely or sounding his horn when he saw the children.

“For Mr Stuttard to proceed in reliance upon a nine-year-old boy keeping himself safe... cannot in law or common sense be sufficient to discharge his duty of care,” he said.

Mr Stuttard had seen the ball kicked across his path shortly before the accident and heightened the risk to Malachi by driving “abnormally close” to the kerb, said Mr Rigby, who added that the driver could have “covered his brake” so that he could stop instantly in an emergency.

Julian Picton QC, for Mr Stuttard, a retired contracts manager, conceded that “children cannot be assumed to take care for their own safety”, but insisted the driver had not been negligent.

Mr Stuttard slowed down to around 5mph, in second gear, on seeing the children, and to require him to stop entirely or sound his horn was “too great an imposition”, said the barrister.

He told the judges that, to find Mr Stuttard liable for the accident, would be to judge with hindsight an incident that took just seconds and impose “a counsel of perfection” on motorists.

Mr Stuttard, the court heard, was convinced Malachi had seen him and that he had regained control of the ball before he took the fateful step backwards so that his foot overhung the kerb.

Recognising the importance of the case, the Appeal Court judges — Lords Justice Rix and Lloyd and Dame Janet Smith — reserved their decision on Malachi’s appeal until an unspecified later date.