Personal injury compensation has been awarded to a former police officer in the West Midlands after he claimed he received no back-up from colleagues as he made an arrest, which led to him sustaining a serious injury.

According to reports from the Birmingham Mail, Richard Gardner received £12,933 in total after telling Birmingham Employment Tribunal he was forced to miss work for months following a clash with a suspect in the middle of a hostile crowd of people.

He damaged his knees and back as he fell to the pavement and subsequently required several operations.

However, Mr Gardner asserted he received no help from police colleagues at the time of the arrest, and that the force failed to make adjustments for his injuries when he eventually returned to work.

The ex-officer, who received two commendations during his time with the police, also stated his belief that he would have eventually become a sergeant had he not injured himself.

At the tribunal, judge David Kearsely said Mr Gardner had a “permanent disability” and that he would have been able to work for 20 hours a week until he was 60 if the police made appropriate adjustments following his injuries.

The news source noted the £12,933 personal injury compensation accounted for loss of earnings due to his injuries, hurt feelings and interest dating back to 2008.

Further compensation could still be claimed over future loss of earnings and health insurance.

West Midlands Police have appealed the decision of the employment tribunal.

A plumber from Warrington narrowly avoided paralysis or even death after a serious accident at work, it has emerged.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a 64-year-old, who has asked not to be named, fell through a fragile tile on a suspended ceiling tile in a workshop in Woolston, while installing a hot water heater near the edge of a boarded area of the roof.

He landed on his neck, sustaining injuries to his neck and head and requiring a neck brace for a total of 12 weeks.

The incident took place in August 2008 but occupiers of the site Dowding and Mills UK Ltd and the worker’s employer Mike Wilde were recently prosecuted by the HSE and fined.

The organisation found that a plumber had fallen through a ceiling tile in the same premises in 2006, but avoided injury by grabbing on to the ceiling boards.

Commenting on the news, HSE inspector Martin Heywood said: “It’s disappointing this work was allowed to go ahead without suitable planning for working at height.”

“Dowding and Mills ignored its own procedures for checking the methods contractors intended to use when undertaking work. Mike Wilde should have made sure a safety barrier was erected or instructed the worker to wear a harness.”

According to statistics from the HSE, 12 people died after falling from height at work in 2010, while over 4,000 employees suffered major injuries after a similar accident at work.

An announcement made earlier this week by Work and Pensions Minister, Chris Grayling MP, could have serious repercussions for the number of serious accidents at work in the UK.

In the announcement, Grayling confirmed that the number of HSE inspections is set to fall by at least a third. In addition, the new policy means that many businesses, and in some instances whole industries, will not be investigated until after there has been a death or serious injury.

Speaking in the Mirror, Grayling claimed that the changes to HSE inspection legislation were a cut to “unnecessary red tape”.

However many accident at work solicitors feel that this may represent flawed thinking.

These changes to policy have obvious implications for UK accident at work statistics; if health and safety inspections are not being carried out, employers are more likely to become negligent in their maintenance of a safe working environment.

Fining companies post-accident for neglect of health and safety practices also seems a mistake; surely dissuasion, by way of regular HSE inspections and fines for non-compliance with regulations, is a better way of avoiding workplace accidents?

Many UK work injury lawyers are now predicting that serious accidents at work will rise as a direct result of the Work and Pensions minister’s changes to HSE inspections.

If you want to find out more about claiming compensation following an accident at work, contact the team at Alkers Solicitors. Our specialist personal injury solicitors will be happy to discuss the details of your case during an initial consultation.

MPs look set to debate whether the speed limit on British motorways should be increased from 70mph to 80mph. A decision could be made on the matter before parliament breaks for summer in July.

However, road safety campaigners argue that any increase in Britain’s maximum speed limit will lead to an inevitable increase in road traffic accidents.

Research conducted by the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety (PACTS) appears to support this opinion, suggesting that a speed limit increase of 10mph will increase road traffic accident casualties by between 5 and 10 percent.

However, the MPs behind the proposed increase hope that an 80mph speed limit will allow for shorter journey times and will help to ease congestion on some of Britain’s busiest motorways.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, roads minister Mike Penning said: ‘We need to look at the economic benefits of shorter journey times as well as considering implications for road safety.’

However, a spokesperson for speed awareness campaigner Coyote noted that the plans are ‘sending out completely the wrong signal to drivers and mak[ing] a mockery of road safety policy.’

In an effort to quell the worries of road safety campaigners, the government will consider whether the speed limit increase should only be implemented during the day.

There were 132 road traffic accident deaths on UK motorways in 2009 at a time when the total number of road deaths was 2,222 – the lowest since records began.  It remains to be seen whether this promising trend will be reversed by an increase in maximum speed limit.

For more information on claiming compensation following road traffic accidents, whether on motorways or other UK roads, contact the experienced personal injury solicitors at Alkers Solicitors.