Buggy battle slammed as waste of court time

A BATTLE over a double buggy should never have reached court, according to a senior judge.

In a High Court case, estimated to have cost the taxpayer £200,000, mother-of-four Rebecca Lawrence, 33, sued Cambridgeshire County Council after Monkfield Park Primary School in Cambourne refused to allow her disabled son's double buggy onto its premises for health and safety reasons.

She claimed the school's policy discriminates against her four-year-old son Matthew, who has cerebral palsy, and tried to sue the county council for thousands of pounds in damages.

But Mrs Lawrence, who now lives in Stanley Webb Close, Sawston, failed in her High Court bid. And Judge Hawkesworth QC said it was a "tragedy" the case even made it to court.

Judge Hawkesworth said the High Court was "really not the place to determine issues like this" and said even if Matthew had been discriminated against, he was so young it could have had no real effect on him and he had suffered "no damage".

He said: "It was in his best interests that this matter should have been settled amicably - and offers were made - but it is a tragedy people should be brought to court when there is a way out through mediation."

The court heard the county council had offered to pay Matthew £1,000 in compensation but it had been rejected.

A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesman said: "The county council is pleased the judge rejected this claim. The county council always maintained neither it nor the school discriminated against Matthew Lawrence.

"The county council would endorse the judge's comments that disputes like this are best resolved outside the context of litigation. The county council made a generous offer to Mrs Lawrence, but Mrs Lawrence rejected that, leaving the county council with no alternative but to have to litigate the case to trial.

"The county council hopes this now draws a line under the whole matter."

Coun Shona Johnstone, Cambridgeshire County Council's cabinet member for children and young people, said: "It is disappointing that it actually went as far as it did. There is the issue of cost and I think it is disappointing that a case like this couldn't be resolved locally."

The case will cost the taxpayer an estimated £200,000 as Mrs Lawrence's case was funded by legal aid so public money paid for both sides of the argument.

The court heard Mrs Lawrence's eldest son, Joseph, now nine, began at Monkfield Park in September 2002. She wanted to be able to take his younger brothers Matthew and his autistic twin David onto the premises but was unable to.

As reported in the Cambridge Evening News