Michael is a barrister specialising in clinical negligence, inquest, and personal injury.
Before coming to the Bar, Michael worked as a doctor, predominantly in hospital medicine and surgery. He also continues to work as a lay chair for the General Dental Council’s education team. Michael draws on this medical, surgical, and dental experience in his work:
- First-hand experience of NHS workplace culture is particularly helpful in NHS employer’s liability claims, in which Michael is frequently instructed.
- In clinical negligence (and when handling all medical evidence), Michael’s medical knowledge enables him to quickly grasp complex factual problems and to test expert and lay evidence.
- Further, through his work as a doctor, Relevant Person’s Representative (RPR) and Independent Health Complaints Advocate, Michael has developed the skills to establish good client rapport quickly and to provide sensible, accessible advice on complex issues.
Michael is regularly instructed in a broad range of clinical negligence, dental negligence, inquest, and personal injury work, in and out of court.
Michael has experience drafting particulars of claim, defences, skeleton arguments, advices on quantum and liability, schedules and counter-schedules, and advising in conference.
Michael welcomes instructions across the full spectrum of work undertaken by the team.
Recent medical / dental negligence cases:
- Failed dental implants
- Delayed cancer diagnosis
- Baby loss and birth injuries
- Chiropractors
- Cosmetic surgery (e.g. breast augmentation, rhinoplasty)
- Ophthalmic surgery
- Spinal injury
- Fatal post-operative bleeding
- Inappropriate treatment / discharge from hospital
- Failure to consent
- Inadequate pain control
- Fatal Accident Act claims
- Prison healthcare claims
- Self-inflicted harms
- Falls in healthcare settings
- Accidental overdose
- Failed steroid injections
- Infection due to retained foreign bodies
- Negligence in care homes
- Chronic pain
- Avoidable stomas
- Bladder / urinary tract injury
- Stress-induced heart attack
Recent personal injury cases:
- Psychiatric harm from mandatory isolation during Covid-19.
- Burns
- Falls from height
- Scarring from exploding glass
- Facial scarring
- Inhalation of fumes
- Defective gym equipment
- Harm whilst using play equipment (climbing frames, wooden logs etc.)
- Highways Act claims and claims in public nuisance on the highway
- Road traffic accidents, including against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau
- Infections contracted at petting zoos
- All manner of lifting, moving, slip, and trip injuries
- Faulty work equipment and failure to provide equipment
- Failure to make adaptations for disabled employees, leading to injury
- Injuries sustained whilst on fairground rides
Recent inquest cases:
- Road traffic collision where the involvement of the police and the NHS was in issue due to drug intoxication.
- Conclusion of ‘accident’ following an unwitnessed fall in hospital, leading to prolonged admission causing a hospital acquired infection and death.
- Narrative conclusion following unintended fatal consequences arising from a non-negligent and necessary surgery.
Michael’s recent notable work includes:
- Advising on the requirement for a mental capacity assessment to determine protected party / protected beneficiary status.
- Successfully striking out a clinical negligence claim with costs awarded.
- Junior counsel in a claim arising from the death of a man intentionally struck with a van at high speed. Settled at JSM.
- Counsel for the family in a 2-day inquest with 4 interested parties. The deceased had been subject to a section 136 by the police for severe drug intoxication but was discharged by the assessing psychiatrists, before tragically being hit and killed by a car just an hour later.
