So Peter Vernon was awarded pounds 1

So Peter Vernon was awarded pounds 1.3m for post-traumatic stress (and consequent lost earnings) after he watched his two daughters drown in an accident. But the Hillsborough relatives were denied cash, even if they watched family members die on television. Eyes count, cameras don’t.Sooner or later these rules are bound to change. The Law Commission has already suggested broadening the interpretation of trauma to relatives, and is undertaking a wider review of other aspects of personal injury litigation.In the end, compensation for personal injury is bound to be a personal and political minefield, as the public react to headline figures, and individuals and insurance companies wrestle through the courts over every hundred pounds Is it worth it? Karen Harris certainly thinks so. After five years pursuing her local health authority over an illness caused by misdiagnosis, she was finally awarded pounds 20,000 “When I got the money it made a huge difference. It meant I could move on with my life.” For Karen, and for many others who pursue their claims through the courts, the purpose is not the cash, it is justice. The Hillsborough families, too, will not be satisfied until they feel justice has been done.What price suffering?pounds 3.4 millionChristine Leung was awarded record compensation of pounds 3.4m in March 1994, after a car crash in which she was paralysed from her shoulders down.pounds 1.2 millionPeter Vernon watched his two daughters drown after the car they were in spun off the road into a river in 1982.

In criminal cases such as these, the state steps in – we the taxpayers fork out to compensate victims for their misery and misfortune. But since the beginning of April this year, with Michael Howard acting on our behalf, we have been a lot tighter with our pennies Now a tariff system operates. If you sprain your ankle when pushed by a mugger, you pick up pounds 2,000. The board will compensate you for lost earnings, too, if your injury lasts more than 28 weeks, but don’t get your hopes up too far. And even if he were still alive, there wouldn’t be much point in suing him for the damage he caused.

When convicted IRA bomber Donna Maguire was awarded pounds 13,500 for tripping up on a dangerous Ulster pavement, the tabloids had a field day: what price Donna’s inability to wear high heels compared to the suffering of the victims of IRA bombs?In fact, for all the apparent randomness of the headline figures, damages for injuries are calculated according to complex rules and precedents. How much you walk – or hobble – away with depends not only on the severity of the injury, but also on whose fault it was, how much you earn, and how determined you and your lawyer are prepared to be.In Dunblane we know exactly who to blame for the murders, the injuries and the traumas But Thomas Hamilton is dead. “At the time, I was so happy to be alive that I thought the money was all right,” she says. I used it to buy a house at the peak of the housing boom, and then lost lots trying to sell it.”A flick through the tabloid newspapers reveals countless cases that do not accord with their editors’ sense of popular justice Hillsborough is just the start.

“But looking back, pounds 10,000 doesn’t really compensate for the loss of taste and smell for ever, and when I read about the huge libel payouts people get, I don’t think it’s fair. I’m probably going to be arthritic in the areas where I broke bones, and I’ve had food poisoning several times because of my lost senses.”My solicitor got me the money in about two years, though it didn’t really help me. She was awarded pounds 10,000 by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board for six broken bones and the permanent loss of her sense of taste and smell. The whole idea of putting a cash value on a personal physical injury or loss is philosophically difficult.