Chapter 4 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
See also this from Australia:
In Hunter and New England Local Health District v McKenna; Hunter and New England Local Health District v Simon [2014] HCA 44 (12 November 2014) the High Court of Australia unanimously overturned a 2-1 decision of the NSW Court of Appeal, by holding that a hospital which had detained a patient as mentally ill, did not owe a duty of care to the relatives of a person killed by that patient when released:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2014/44.html

Review of 10 killings uncovers failings at NHS mental health trust that 'severely underestimated' risk posed by patients, The Telegraph, 18 October 2016
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/18/review-of-10-killings-uncovers-failings-at-nhs-mental-health-tru/

Chris Brennan inquest: Hospital neglect 'contributed to teenager's death' BBC News, 21 September 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37430212
‘NHS trust 'truly sorry' about death of teenager Connor Sparrowhawk’ The Guardian 18 September 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/18/nhs-trust-truly-sorry-about-death-of-teenager-connor-sparrowhawk
‘Neighbour from hell’ admits killing - a BBC report on the background to Mitchell v Glasgow County Council [2009]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2063335.stm
Bangladesh: 77m poisoned by arsenic in drinking water – a BBC report updating the situation in Bangladesh (which led to the Sutradhar case in 2006) regarding arsenic in hand-pumped wells. The World Health Organisation described the exposure as "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10358063
The problem does not seem to be going away:
‘Can technology help Bangladesh end mass arsenic poisoning?’ Reuters 28 August 2017
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-pollution-water-health/can-technology-help-bangladesh-end-mass-arsenic-poisoning-idUSKCN1B80GP

See also: ‘'Alarmingly high' levels of arsenic in Pakistan's ground water’, BBC News, 23 August 2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41002005
Negligence liability for omissions – some fundamental distinctions, Nicholas J. McBride, Cambridge Student Law Review [2006]
http://mcbridesguides.com/2012/09/10/negligence-liability-for-omissions-some-fundamental-distinctions/
In his words, this article, by a Cambridge tort lawyer, ‘set[s] out some important distinctions that students should bear in mind in trying to understand and evaluate this area of the law’.
A blog entry from David Hart QC on the UK Human Rights Blog discusses the Bedford v Bedfordshire County Council [2013] EWHC 1717, a claim brought in human rights but with many similarities to other negligence omissions cases (which the court acknowledged would not work in the alternative): ‘Brain-damaged claimant fails in Article 8 claim against Council’ 2 July 2013 at
http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2013/07/02/brain-damaged-claimant-fails-in-article-8-claim-against-council/
Joanne Conaghan, 'Challenging and Redressing Police Failures in the Context of Rape Investigations: The Civil Liability Route' http://private-law-theory.org/?p=6784
An audio recording of Professor Joanne Conaghan discussing the Michael case (also relevant to the public bodies chapter), and explaining the potential that civil remedies might have in such circumstances can be found here.