Savernake health campaigners await judge's decision (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Savernake health campaigners await judge's decision

12:34pm Sunday 5th July 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

Upbeat but exhausted…that was how Val Compton described herself at the end of the four day High Court trial over the closure of the Minor Injuries Unit and Day Hospital at Savernake.

The trial at which Wiltshire Primary Care Trust refuted Mrs Compton’s claims that the day hospital was closed or that they closed the MIU for the wrong reasons started on Tuesday and finished on Friday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Each day more than a dozen supporters travelled up to the city on a coach with Mrs Compton and there were just over in 20 in court for the last session that ended with judge Mr Justice Ross Cranston saying he would reserve judgement for a few weeks.

The judge took the unusual step of publicly thanking Mrs Compton’s legal team for acting pro bono (giving their services throughout the case).

The team was headed by Neil Garham QC supported by Guy Opperman, Mathew Gullick and Caroline Stone.

The judge also remarked that he had noted that each day a group of supporters had travelled up from Wiltshire to support Mrs Compton.

“She has always had the support of the people who have turned up every day.

I am impressed by their support.”

Mr Justice Cranston said he hoped to give his judgement before the courts’ summer recess starts at the end of July but at the very latest by the end of August.

Outside the court Mr Opperman explained that he felt obliged to take on the case because had been born in Savernake Hospital in 1965 and added: “Both myself and my mother would have died without the actions of the nursing and clinical staff at Savernake Hospital.”

In court on the final day to watch Mr Opperman and the rest of his team in action was his old nanny, Marie Dixon from Wexcombe near Marlborough.

Mrs Dixon, 71, said: “I was his nanny from the word go, in fact I saw him before his father did.

“The Opperman family lived at Wexcombe by me at the time,” said Mrs Dixon after she and the lawyer had hugged and chatted.

Mr Opperman, whose battle on behalf of Mrs Compton has now attracted international interest, was out of earshot when Mrs Dixon added: “He was a normal naughty little boy.”

Although the outcome of the case remains to be announced in the next few weeks, Mrs Compton has already achieved one victory that has set a legal precedent in every country in the world whose law is based on the British constitution.

She won the right in the High Court, later supported by the Court of Appeal, to have her costs capped – at £20,000 which local people have pledged to meet if needs be – paving the way for modestly well-off people to take on their local councils or health authorities if they perceive wrong doings without risking losing their homes or all their savings.

Mr Opperman said of Mrs Compton: “She is without doubt the most determined woman I have ever met.”

On the journey home, using the coach microphone, Mrs Compton told her supporters: “Over the past two years I have fed off other people’s passion and enthusiasm…thanks for keeping me going.”

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)