Author wins £115K in fumes case

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/devon/7208396.stm

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A prize-winning Devon author has won a £115,000 out-of-court settlement over fumes from a nearby shoe shop.

Joan Brady claimed solvents used by the Conker Shoe Company next to her Totnes home caused what she described as "terrifying" physical effects.

Ms Brady, who won the Whitbread Prize in 1993 with The Theory of War, said she was eventually forced to move.

The current owners of Conker are not linked to the dispute which was settled out of court.

'No choice'

The author claimed that over a three-year period until she moved to Oxford in 2004, she suffered numbness in her feet and legs, sleep disturbance and lethargy.

She began legal action in 2003 over the issue, and doctors from the medical toxicology unit of Guy's Hospital in London confirmed that she had nerve damage.

"I was living with this stuff 24 hours a day. I could stick pins in my legs and not feel them. It was terrifying, I could not use my computer properly," she said.

"I had no choice but to move," she added.

Prem Ash, a former co-owner of Conker, said the company used the safest glues on the market.

"We are disappointed that the insurers chose to settle," she said.

"We were quite prepared to go to court so that everybody could realise we had done nothing wrong. My two children worked at the factory for six years each.

"There is no way we would have subjected ourselves, let alone our children, to toxic fumes."