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Law firm's payout to 'betrayed' ex-miners
Claims handled negligently A LAW firm has been forced to pay out over £100,000 to 13 former Yorkshire miners after handling their claims for compensation negligently. Rob Waugh
Some of the claims against Doncaster solicitors Shaw & Co were prompted by a Yorkshire Post investigation into the Yorkshire Compensation Recovery Service, which referred clients to the firm.
Steve Kemp, secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and the Yorkshire area NUM, said: "These miners have been betrayed by the solicitors they trusted. This is why the NUM always advise miners only to use solicitors approved by the union.
"Many miners have lost out on the money they should have received to compensate them for ill-health caused when serving the mining industry in this country. This is a national scandal."
The 13 former miners alleged that Shaw & Co were negligent in their conduct of vibration white finger (VWF) claims.
After their cases were taken by NUM solicitors Raleys, based in Barnsley, four claims were settled in November 2004. The remaining nine claims were denied and were due to be heard at a trial in Sheffield County Court but an agreement has now been reached so that all of the former miners receive additional compensation.
Damages have been agreed in a number of claims, but where agreement has not been possible the men have been awarded interim payments. Two of the men have received interim payments of over 19,000 pending a separate trial to be heard later in the year to assess the full scale of the damages.
Jim Gladman, of Raleys, said: "So far we have had to sue 10 firms of solicitors in various negligence claims on behalf of miners and we are pursuing claims against a number of other firms.
"Taking the claims to court is the only way to recover lost compensation after the firms deny negligence."
Mr Gladman added that some of the negligence claims had been prompted by a series of Yorkshire Post exposs about the discredited Yorkshire Com-pensation Recovery Service.
Shaw and Co were previously linked to YCRS, which used false information to secure a 60,000 grant from Doncaster Council to set up a miners' compensation scheme. Chris Shaw had an office at YCRS headquarters in Doncaster and had clients referred to his firm by YCRS.
Mr Shaw had previously worked for Russell Young, a solicitor who profited from a stream of clients sent to him by YCRS. He took on Mr Young's clients after Mr Young was struck off for misusing clients' money.
Last night Mr Shaw, senior partner with Shaw and Co, said the company had not had any contact with YCRS for four years.
In a statement he said: "We are obviously disappointed that these 13 clients believe they were not given the proper advice.
"However, I would like to stress that it was difficult for any company to advise back in 1998 because the Department of Trade and Industry was offering settlements while court cases were still ongoing.
"Since then we have dealt successfully with 2,500 VWF claims under the revised scheme and helped secure millions of pounds for our clients.We are among the 15 leading legal companies nationally in that field."
rob.waugh@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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