A woman who won a judgment against her local authority after she nearly drowned during a school swimming lesson 16 years ago has been awarded £2m in compensation.
Annie Woodland was a 10-year-old pupil at Whitmore junior school in Basildon, Essex, when she was pulled from the water and resuscitated at Gloucester Park pool in July 2000.
She suffered severe brain damage as a result. She still has memory problems, fatigue, poor balance and says the hidden nature of her injury makes it hard for people to understand.
Her parents began a legal battle and, in 2013, the supreme court made a ruling that Essex county council owed a “non-delegable duty of care”, despite the swimming lessons being contracted out to a third party. At the trial that followed last year, the high court concluded that the lifeguards and swimming teachers responsible for supervising Woodland had breached their duty of care.
A settlement of £2m has just been agreed, with the local authority paying two-thirds and the lifeguard at the time making up the rest.
Woodland, now 26, lives in the Blackpool area with her partner, Sam Hill, and their 13-month-old son, Joey. “If I didn’t have Joey I would probably be in quite a bad way still. I have had years of depression, but I just look at him and I am happy,” she said.
“I’ll never get over what happened, but I’ve got to move on with my life now and make the best of it for his sake.”
Woodland is unable to work and lawyers handle her finances as she does not have the capacity to manage her own affairs. “I can’t even explain what it’s like,” she said. “It affects everything, but you try and explain what’s wrong with you and people don’t believe it ... It’s a lonely place to be.”
Her mother, Alison, 50, said Annie had been “a happy, confident little girl”. She said the legal action had not been driven by money but to stop it happening to anyone else: “At least I know now that whatever happens in the future she is going to be safe and secure.”
The family’s lawyer, Jennifer Maloney, a serious injury specialist at the law firm Slater and Gordon, said: “Annie is a brave young woman who has been forced to spend most of her childhood and all of her adult life dealing with the devastating consequences of what happened. She deserves some peace of mind which I hope this settlement will bring.”
An Essex county council spokesman confirmed that the local authority had agreed the settlement.