Coxon v Flintshire County Council

Where abuse in care has contributed to psychiatric injury alongside pre-existing vulnerability and other life events, damages need not be apportioned by percentages. The court must make the best fair estimate on all the evidence, using a broad and practical assessment.

Abuse by carers may compound an already vulnerable child’s condition, particularly where it destroys trust in persons responsible for care. Psychiatric-damages guidelines are not a rigid bracket for prolonged physical, emotional and sexual abuse in care. An appellate court will not interfere with an award unless it is so excessive as to be an entirely erroneous estimate.

The claimant entered the defendant local authority’s care aged 14 after a troubled home life and bullying at school. During placements at Chevet Hay and Bersham Hall she was bullied, assaulted, verbally abused, sexually abused by a care assistant, and unlawfully kept in secure accommodation.

Scott-Baker J awarded damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity, past and future loss of earnings, and future psychotherapy. The authority accepted liability but appealed each award as excessive. The central issue was whether the awards were plainly wrong, given the claimant’s pre-existing vulnerability and other causes of her later difficulties.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice Ward gave the principal judgment. Lords Justice Buxton and Henry agreed. The awards for general damages, past earnings loss and future psychotherapy were not so high as to disclose an entirely erroneous estimate.

2. In assessing causation and damages, the judge was entitled to reject a percentage apportionment between the consequences of abuse in care and other adverse influences. Such an exercise was unhelpful and, on the evidence, incapable of precision. Following the broad approach in Thompson v Smith Ship Repairers Ltd, the court had to make the best fair estimate on the whole evidence.

3. The trial judge’s preference for Dr Abel’s general approach did not adopt her numerical estimate of causation. He had expressly declined to quantify responsibility in percentages. He was entitled instead to find that the mistreatment had a very significant effect on the claimant’s later life and employment prospects.

4. Per Buxton LJ, the claimant’s initial vulnerability was the very context in which the authority had to exercise particular care. Abuse by trusted carers could compound that vulnerability. The authority could not treat the original causes as requiring a precise or dominant reduction where its own breaches had substantially deprived the claimant of a reasonably fulfilling life.

5. The Judicial Studies Board psychiatric-damage guidance did not provide a rigid or readily applicable bracket for long-term abuse of a child in care. The nature of the abuse, its compounding effect and its long duration justified the trial judge’s broad assessment. The £35,000 general-damages award was therefore proper. The £20,000 past-earnings award was within the reasonable range, and the agreed need and cost for five years’ psychotherapy supported that award.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the local authority’s appeal: [2001] EWCA Civ 302.
• High Court, Queen’s Bench Division (Scott-Baker J): awarded the claimant damages on 26 July 2000. No citation is stated in the judgment.