DisAbled Scooter Driver To Pay £13K To Supermarket Worker

A disabled woman from Denbighshire who injured a supermarket worker with her mobility scooter has been ordered to pay £13,110 in compensation.

But a judge at Rhyl County Court said Gloria Brown, from Rhyl, could pay £100 a month, after the 61-year-old feared she would have to sell her house.

It comes after Mrs Brown’s scooter hit the member of staff’s trolley in the Denbighshire town’s Morrisons store in 2005, injuring her knee.

She will appeal against the decision.

The mother, whose disabilities include osteoarthritis, previously claimed her scooter was stationary in December 2005 when a customer using a scooter provided by Morrisons collided with hers, sending her crashing into a trolley being used by a member of staff.

Four months later, Mrs Brown was told she was being taken to court by the injured woman.

In January, the county court found her liable and ordered her to pay compensation and legal costs.

However, on Tuesday, the court agreed that Mrs Brown can to repay the debt at £100 a month, over the next 12 years.

But because of the length of time the legal bill will take to be paid, Judge Merfyn Jones-Evans also agreed to secure the debt against Mrs Brown home in Rhyl.

But the judge was keen to stress that her home was not under threat, as long as she continued to meet the monthly payments.

“The ball is in your court,” he told Mrs Brown.

‘Vulnerable’

Speaking after the hearing, Mrs Brown said the decision over her £80,000 house, where her daughter and 74-year-old husband live, was a “weight off my shoulders”.

But she insisted that her fight to overturn the original negligence claim was not over.

“It puts me in a vulnerable position – do I ever go shopping again?” she said.

“This is taking away the rights and the human rights of disabled people to live as near a normal life as possible and to be independent.

“I’m not going to stop here. How many disabled people have we got in the British Isles? How many people drive these scooters? We can’t just sit down and take this.”

Despite having no legal aid for the civil case, Mrs Brown and her supporters said they had found a solicitor willing to take on their fight at the appeal courts in London.

Mrs Brown said if necessary, she would take it to the European courts, and had already secured a case number in Europe, if her appeal fails.