Fruit picker left with terrible injuries in deadly M5 coach crash gets £2m
A fruit picker from Birmingham who was left with 'terrible injuries' after a fatal coach crash on the M5 is set to receive more than £2 million in damages.
The man, in his 30s, was a passenger on the coach driven by Jasminder Singh Dhesi, 53, of Nethell Hall Avenue, Great Barr, on March 24 2012.
Dhesi had been drinking before his un-roadworthy coach, carrying 34 passengers, broke down three times on the foggy motorway.
The vehicle, which was carrying agricultural workers from Birmingham to Evesham, Worcestershire, was hit by a lorry while broken-down for the third time.
Tragedy struck between junctions three and four, where there was no hard shoulder.
Dhesi was jailed for six years in 2013 after he admitted causing two deaths by dangerous driving.
Passenger Liaquat Ali, 35, of Smethwick, and Somerset lorry driver, William Mapstone, 65, lost their lives.
The 32-year-old passenger, who cannot be named due to his acute vulnerability, was left with serious brain damage and multiple broken bones.
He appeared at London's High Court on crutches as his barrister, Paul Bleasdale QC, said it had not been a 'straightforward case'.
The QC said his client was 'disappointed with the result of the negotiations' and 'does not believe the compensation package is sufficient'.
And the man, who now plans to return to his native India, told the court that he felt he had been 'unfairly and unjustly treated'.
But Mr Justice Mitting said he was 'satisfied' that the settlement - valued at just over £2million - was in his 'best interests'.
"He is not the man who arrived in the UK and, as a result of the terrible injuries he has sustained, he will face a life in India which will be much less satisfactory," the judge added.
Richard Hartley QC, representing motor insurers, said that the man was 'an innocent victim in a dreadful road traffic accident which changed his life'.
