Success Stories

We jealously guard our reputation as one of the leading firms in the field. However we are also conscious of the adage that you are only as good as your last case. Here we set out some of our recent successes, so you can judge for yourselves:

Leicester City Council pay out £400,000 - 7 August 2008

Bolt Burdon Kemp represented five out of seven children (now adults) who were abused by a DJ at the Granby Halls roller skating rink in Leicester between 1978 and 1999. Leicester City Council paid £400,000 in compensation and legal costs and orders settling the action were signed off by the High Court in London last month.

Barry Spencer worked at Granby Halls from the 1960’s until it shut in 1998. He was jailed for 15 years in January 2006 after admitting 69 sexual assaults on 15 girls and one boy. Since then, some of his victims have been fighting for compensation from the Council that employed him.

Leicester denied liability from the word go, and whilst settlement was obtained without a formal admission of liability, Jonathan Wheeler, who acted for the five clients said that the Council’s insurers would not have paid the money without a strong case to answer. Publicity for the plight of Spencer’s victims in the Leicester Mercury newspaper was crucial to tracing witnesses and a Freedom of Information Act request for relevant documents, as well as time spent going through the Leicester Council archives was time well spent in building the case against Spencer’s employers.

Challenging the time limits for bringing claims: Landmark judgment in the House of Lords

We represented two men who had been abused as children by their form teacher in a London school in the 1980s. It was only after they had grown up, and were in their late 20's that they independently started to come to terms with what happened to them, and the effect that the abuse was still having on their lives. They had co-operated with the police in bringing their abuser to justice through the criminal courts, but when it came to a compensation claim they were technically 'out of time'. We sued the abuser's employers, who maintained throughout that the claims were time barred. We took their case as a test case first to trial at the Mayors & City County Court in October 2005 where our clients lost, but were given permission to appeal. Their case was heard in the Court of Appeal in April 2006  - our clients lost but the judges were sympathetic and allowed a further appeal to the House of Lords, which gave judgement in January 2008. Both our clients won, the Law Lords accepting that the old law was wrong, and overturned a previous House of Lords decision (a very rare event!). The case, X & Y v London Borough of Wandsworth was one of a group of cases which has changed the law and effectively allows child abuse victims the same rights as other personal injury claimants to apply to the court to waive the time limits in cases where otherwise a fair trial would still be possible. Our clients won damages of £57,000 and £70,000 respectively, as well as payment of their legal costs from the London Borough which had opposed them all the way.

First 'failure to retain in care' case to succeed at trial

In December 2007, we made legal history by taking the first case of its kind to trial at the High Court. We represented  Jake Pierce in his claim against the  London Borough of Doncaster. Jake was born in 1976 to a family which was already known to the local Social Services department.  Because of grave concerns by social services, he was removed into foster care at an early age, and stayed in care for 15 months until, with a change of personnel at the Council, he was allowed back home with his parents. He went on to be horribly abused until he was 14, when he ran away from home to escape his brutal home life. It was alleged that social services failed to properly monitor him having returned him home. The case was strongly contested and went to trial in the High Court in London. Mr Justice Eady accepted our case that Jake had been abused and that - knowing what they knew - no reasonable local authority would have placed him back with his parents. Jake was awarded £25,000 for the physical injuries caused by the abuse he suffered at home. However Jake has still to receive his compensation as Doncaster’s lawyers have successfully applied to appeal. This is due to be heard in the Court of Appeal in October 2008. We will keep you informed.

Landmark judgment on ‘close connection’ to employment

When is an employer responsible for the actions of its child abusing employee? We took a precedent- setting case to the Court of Appeal on this issue in 2006. The law states that in order for an employer to be liable in compensation for the actions of a paedophile that they employed, there has to be a ‘close connection’ to their employment: That can be in terms of what they do in their job (if they are employed to look after kids, and abuse that trust, then their employer is liable) and also in terms of where the abuse occurs. Our client was sexually assaulted by his school teacher who had taken him off the school premises to abuse him out of school hours. The Defendants argued that this was not closely connected to the teacher’s employment. The Court of Appeal however accepted that the teacher looked after pupils, and that he used his time with our client at school to groom him for the abuse, and arrange their after school meetings.  The Local Authority lost the point, and our client was allowed to pursue his claim for damages against them.

Foster parents sell house to meet compensation payment

We acted for two brothers who alleged they had been physically and emotionally abused by their foster parents when living in London and Norfolk. Before trial, the foster parents agreed to settle the claims but without an admission of liability. Due to late payment of the agreed sums, we had to obtain court orders against the foster parents who eventually had to sell one of their houses to meet the damages and costs owed.

‘Failure to remove’ settlement

We acted for Ms R who successfully claimed damages against London Borough of Hackney, who settled her claim for £57,500 plus costs.  Our client was the oldest of 3 siblings who were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their mother and step father. We argued that Social Services should have taken action to remove the children into care at an earlier stage. Our client in fact had to take her own court proceedings when aged 16 to get her younger brother and sister out of the abusive environment in which they all lived, which had been contested by the Council. In addition to the compensation, our client received an apology in person from the Director of Children’s Services at the Council.

Abuse in care

We took over conduct of this case from a firm of solicitors who had closed their abuse department. The claimant had been abused in care as a child and found the legal process very difficult to deal with. He wanted to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible. When we received the papers we immediately prepared to issue proceedings and invited the Defendants to make an offer to settle the case. The Defendants offered £7,500.00. This was not accepted. We issued and served the claim and made a formal offer to settle the claim for £20,000.00 and this was accepted by the Defendants.

Abuse by foster father

From the age of 8 to 13 Ms X was abused by her foster father. She was able to consider taking legal action when she was 32 but by then the statutory limit (6 years) for bringing a claim against the foster father was time barred. In one of the first cases of its kind, we sued the foster mother for failing to protect her from the abuse and successfully argued that the 3 year time limit should be extended. Ms X recovered £25,000.00.

Abuse in children's home

In I -v- D, we acted for a client who had been sexually abused whilst placed in the care of her local authority many years ago. The man who abused her was the manager of the children's home, and he had since died. Our client was extremely affected by the abuse and could not come to terms with what had happened to her for some years. We alleged that the local authority was responsible for her while she had been in care, and had failed to protect her. At all stages, solicitors for the local authority argued that our client had issued proceedings "out of time" and therefore could not recover damages. They also denied that their client was responsible. By doggedly pursuing several court applications for relevant documents we found out that the council had had suspicions about the manager for many years and even before our client was placed in his care. The defendant's final offer of £50,000 was accepted just before trial, and we also negotiated an unreserved apology from the council to our client.

Other notable successes where we are not restricted from "naming and shaming" the defendants are set out below:

We have also acted for clients in CICA claims for sexual and physical abuse in childhood, which we have run parallel to a civil claim for damages. We typically secure between £6,000 and £12,000 in compensation in these claims, even where our clients are technically 'out of time' for submitting their application. Sometimes if there is enough evidence to prove a loss of earnings, these awards can be much higher.