Active Legal, News

29/04/22

A Priory hospital has been accused by a father for failing its legal duty to safeguard his son after he "escaped" and was killed by a train.

Staff at the Priory Woodbourne told the father, Richard Caseby, that patients absconded, "all the time for drink, drugs or to meet friends". They added they were confident that his son, Matthew, 23, would return. However, he had jumped the fence when left unsupervised on September 7^th, 2020.

28/03/22

After the High Court ruled the force broke the law over its handling of the Sarah Everard vigil, Scotland Yard has warned that policing protests may become more difficult.

The Metropolitan Police was found to have breached the rights of the organisers when it declared the gathering illegal under lockdown rules. Taking place last March, the vigil was planned as a socially distanced gathering on Clapham Common, south London, to honour the 33-year-old woman who had been abducted from the area earlier that month. 

14/02/22

After successfully arguing the 400-year-old legal principle that "an Englishman's home is his castle", a farmer who used a tractor to wreck a car illegally parked on his land has walked free

57-year-old Robert Hooper became an internet sensation last June when a video of him using the spikes on his telehandler to flip over a £16,000 Vauxhall Corsa went viral on social media. The hill farmer, from Co Durham, said he had been forced to act after he came under attack from a "strutting and agitated" shirtless youth, who had refused to move the car. 

13/01/22

Under new restrictions on potentially harmful chemicals, blue and green tattoos could be outlawed in the EU.

The European Commission introduced rules banning more than 4,000 substances in inks amid fears they can cause cancer or other illnesses; the EU said many of the chemicals in tattoo inks are "carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic". Tattoo artists across the EU now fear the diktat could shut their parlours while suppliers look for alternative inks that are compliant with the chemical legislation. Others fear the rules could spell the end for green and blue tattoos because there are no immediate replacements. 

21/12/21

A former pastry chef for Heston Blumenthal has claimed that she has been left suffering from repetitive strain injury after being forced to make 550 whisky wine gums a day at his Fat Duck restaurant.

Sarah Anderson, from Donegal in Ireland, worked at the three-Michelin star restaurant between 2014 and 2015, and is suing the Fat Duck for £200,000 over claims she can no longer properly drive, cook, or lift heavy objects due to "significant wrist pain".