Chapter 3 Web Links

Tort law cases often make the news headlines. The purpose of the web links provided here is to fill you in on some of the background to the cases and, occasionally, statutes that you are studying. They include a mixture of video and audio clips, newspaper reports, blog posts, Government reports, case reports and so on. We've also taken the opportunity to include 'updates' where the law has changed or developed since the publication of the book.

In our experience it is often easier to remember the facts or decision of a particular case when you know a bit more about its background - when you can, for example, visualise the parties involved, or picture the accident or event that lead to the claim. We also believe that awareness of the context of a particular case or the passage of a statute can often help students understand – and begin to question – why the decision was reached, or why the introduction of legislation was felt necessary. Our view is that it is important that you experience – and engage with – tort law as a dynamic and fluid process, as a body of progressive rather than static, ahistorical rules. We hope that the links provided here (as well as other things you may link to from them) will help you do this and that they will give you a sense of historical perspective and an insight into the role of the context and history in the development of legal doctrine.

We've done our best to ensure that the links are as extensive as possible but the links are (obviously) not exhaustive. We urge you to make keep an eye on developments both in tort and other areas of law by reading good legal blogs as well as the law pages of quality newspapers online.

Of course, we also know that on occasions (particularly when a deadline is pressing) these sort of additional materials (as well as the others included on our online resources) can prove to be a bit of a distraction. These links are intended to supplement your studies. They are not an alternative to the harder work of reading the text book, academic commentary, and cases. In fact, there is no excuse for not reading the cases. Within these web links we've provided deep links on BAILLI to a selection of key cases from each chapter, and we encourage you to put your background reading, watching, and surfing to good use by reading these in full so that you gain a deeper understanding of the issues they raise.

On the obligation (or otherwise) of a medical doctor to come forward when someone is in medical distress, even when it is not their patient, see the Australian case Lowns & Anor v Woods & Ors (1996) Aust. Torts Reports 81-376, 63,151, and a case note by Lynda Crowley-Smith commenting on the decision in (1996) 3 James Cook University Law Review 137
http://worldlii.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JCULawRw/1996/9.pdf
Note the different approach to that taken in English law.

Mother loses compensation battle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/383790.stm
News report on the outcome of the Rosie Palmer case (Palmer v Tees Health Authority [1999])

Video/audio news clip on the Rosie Palmer case giving background and context
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/380000/video/_383837_palmer_vi.ram

Child killer must serve 16 years – further context on the criminal aspect of the Rosie Palmer case
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/4755225.stm

Home office blunder left man free to rape
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/aug/28/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
A newspaper report on the story of Rashid Musa (K v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002]) and the criminal trial against him. Musa was an asylum seeker who had been imprisoned for rape, and who committed two further rapes months after the home office negligently failed to deport him. He was given five life sentences and told he was a psychopath and 'an evil and dangerous man', but the civil case against him by one of the victims he raped after his release failed.

Freed to rape and kill: two men who should have been deported. More on Rashid Musa, also this time including a similar report about 18 year old Indrit Krasniqi.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1516673/Freed-to-rape-and-kill-two-men-who-should-have-been-deported.html

Errors left 'sadist' free to kill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8073659.stm
Despite earlier cases such as Palmer and K, errors are still sometimes made. In 2008, for example, two French students were murdered in London after ‘a catalogue of failures’ led to the murderers being free. At the time this looked likely to also become a civil case.

The parents of the two murdered French students said they will prosecute British authorities over the failures in the justice system which contributed to their sons' deaths. This is the Sky News report on YouTube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx4GJU-qxC8

Probation blunders in French students murder case: 'Levels of chaotic organisation in the public service', The Guardian
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/audio/2009/jun/05/french-student-murders-probation-blunders
Here you can download an Alan Travis audio file on probation blunders involved in the French students murder case

Cases

Home Office v Dorset Yacht Co Ltd [1970]
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKHL/1970/2.html

Barrett v Ministry of Defence [1995]
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1994/7.html

Costello v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police [1999]
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1998/3536.html

Palmer v Tees Health Authority [1999]
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1999/1533.html

Reeves v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2000]
www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKHL/1999/35.html

Mitchell v Glasgow City Council [2009]
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090218/mitche-1.htm

Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2015]
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/2.html