Utter crap in my opinion, if a 12 year old doesn't know right from one then they're clearly badly parented, which given the location of the incident, seems likely anyway.

Compensation culture, nothing more, if it had been me my old man would have probably apologised to the bus company, given me a belt and made me walk to school, regardless of the weather, for the next 3 months.

How very sad Mr Hudgell. How proud your parents must be !!!

now now, we don't want to be getting threatening PM's from his biatch now, do we!

These kind of ambulance chasers give dedicated, professional and honourable lawyers a bad name.

I am sure 12 year olds know right from wrong however kids do prat about and take chances, this is not necasserily down to poor parenting!!I am sure you pulled a few pranks in your youth which may well make you cringe now.
The bus operator had a responsibilty to ferry school children to school, this prank should not have being allowed to happen, I am struggling to understand how the driver did not see them climbing in.I also believe because kids do indeed prat about there should be another adult on the bus (buss attendant) to ensure the kids behave.

I'm impressed by your knowledge of the details of the case given the paucity of information in the article.

Before making a similar judgement I'd be wanting to know whether the bus was under way before the girls climbed on the rack, and whether or not the driver could see them there. I'd also point out that these racks are normally clearly labelled as unsafe for passengers to ride on, so unless there was a lack of clear and appropriate warnings it could be argued that the fault lies solely with the girls who chose to ignore said signs.

There is generally a lot more to these cases than gets reported in the press.

Are you prepared to pay double fare for school travel to cover the cost?

I'm sorry, but if people's kids cannot behave then it's down to them, not society. Too many parents abdicate responsibility for their kids nowadays.

.....and i am equally sure Mr Hudgell has ALL the facts to hand and would have asked those very questions BEFORE pursuing the case.

Yeah.........and look at the pratt you turned out to be.

My son travels to school by bus every day, I am confident he behaves, however I am also aware he travels with a lot of boys to school and a lot of ribbing etc takes place, a natural part of grwoing up, for instance the whole school were kept in at lunch in the recent snow weather due to some throwing snow balls at buses, this behaviour is wrong but we all recognise it happens and the boys in the whole school were made away of their behaviour and appropraitely punished, hopefully learning by their behaviour and the dangers involved.
Schools get contracts to ferry kids to school, if that contract includes an extra adult in the qoute for health & safety reasons I see no problem with this.

So you think that no injury lawyer has ever taken a case without full research, nor lost a case in court?

According to the article he hasn't even seen the CCTV footage yet. He won't have had a detailed account from the driver or other witnesses on the bus yet either. The case appears to be in the very preliminary stages and may not even make it to court - large numbers of similar cases don't.

Many cases like this are taken up based initially on just the evidence from the aggrieved party. The early stages run little risk of losing the lawyer significant sums of money, and there is always the possibility that the defendant will settle out of court regardless of the merits of the case and the likelihood of the claim succeeding. Public bodies in particular are prone to just pay up rather than risk the expenses incurred on the off chance that the claim succeeds.

That's the main issue with 'compensation culture' rather than the numbers of cases succeeding after due process, which have actually stayed level or even fallen slightly.

The girl should be done for criminal damage of the bus.

As a tax payer who does not have kids (and nor do I want them) I see a huge problem with me subsidising the fact that your kids cannot behave, it's simply rediculous for parents to keep expecting society to fulfill the parental role.

(please do not take that personally, I am sure you are a great parent, but I am sure you'll understand my point, even if you disagree)

I used to be an officer in Boys Brigade, we closed shop when we realised we were simply another babysitting service, the youth club in the village I grew up in has closed for similar reasons, the only reason the Scouts/Cubs/Explorers has kept going is because a few very tolerant and community spirited people keep turning out each week.

Until people start to take responsibility for the actions (and inactions) of their kids we're going to remain in a bit of a mess, I work with some really, and I mean REALLY, ppor families, if this had been their kids they would have been petrified about getting a bill for the damage, no way would they look to apportion blame on the driver or the bus company. I guess some people have a bit more morality.

The bus may already have been moving before the girls got on the rack and the driver didn't see them do it or was waiting for a safe place to pull over.

I have made no comment about the potential claim in this thread, my points have addressed child behaviour and the health & safety of children.
Unfortunatley we are in a society with parents who do not all share the same values, sadly this creates a circle, these children become parents with the same values, the only way society can attempt to remedy this is to offer alternative view/ideas, socialisation within the community, sports clubs (rugby, netball, football,etc), community centres, scouts & brownies. People may well feel they become a babysitting agency however they are often unaware of the good job they are doing socialising some young people, and offering them alternatives in their own behaviours and responsiblities within society.

I should think they are, I'd be proud of my kids if they went through uni and became a successful lawyer. Lets face it there are worse jobs to do as a lawyer, someone has to represent real scum in criminal cases.