Latest news with #DigbyBrown
Daily Record
13-06-2025
- Daily Record
Dog bite claims - why the keeper is to blame, not the animal
Over the last few years, reports of dog attacks have become increasingly prevalent across news and social media, writes Damian White, Partner at Digby Brown. The controversy around certain breeds is understandable, but most people know it's also misplaced and, sometimes, misconstrued. It's not solely XL bullies, Dobermans, and Rottweilers - Digby Brown disagrees with the idea of bad breeds in general. But we do agree with the notion of bad owners, and so does the law. In Scotland, victims can get help via the Animals (Scotland) Act 1987. This law makes it clear that a dog keeper can be held strictly liable if someone is injured as a result of the dog 'biting or otherwise savaging, attacking or harrying'. Strict liability means that, instead of an injured person having to prove why the keeper is to blame, the keeper instead has to prove why they are not to blame. Strict liability does not apply in situations where the dog may have bitten as a form of self-defence, such as if the victim was deliberately playing rough or goading the animal into acting aggressively. But the Act does not apply if a person is injured in what is clearly an accident, like being knocked over by a dog that jumped up affectionately. The term 'keeper' is important to consider because the person who is at fault is the person who was in control of the dog at the time of the incident, and that might not necessarily be the owner. This is common in cases where an owner leaves their pet with a professional dog walker - the walker doesn't become the dog's owner but does become the dog's (temporary) keeper. This means that if a dog bites someone while in the care of a dog walker, the victim would claim against the dog walker, not the owner. (Canine professionals should have public liability insurance to deal with these circumstances.) Likewise, a keeper can be a loved one or family friend who looks after a dog while the owner is on holiday. We totally understand why people regard pets as being part of the family, but the reality is that the law essentially recognises dogs as property, and compensation is most commonly secured via one of the following routes, depending on the person who was in control of the dog at the time of the bite: If the keeper is a private individual, a claim is most likely made against their pet or home insurance. If the keeper is a professional service provider, a claim is most likely made against any professional insurance they have. Digby Brown Solicitors has years of experience in helping people affected by dog bites, and dog bite compensation can be used to help people with: One such person was art teacher Kristina Aburrow, who was mauled by a Rottweiler as she crossed the road in Aberdeen. She was left with a four-inch gash on her left forearm and was shocked when the police took no action against the dog owner.
The Herald Scotland
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Edinburgh Festival faces a summer of Gaza sponsorship rows
A quick recap, then a look at why this matters. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg pulled out of an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) in 2023 on account of its long-standing relationship with Edinburgh-based investment firm Baillie Gifford. She viewed this hook-up as an example of 'green-washing' by a firm gaining from investments in companies whose interests were inimical to her beliefs. 'Green-washing efforts by the fossil fuel industry, including sponsorship of cultural events, allow them to keep the social license to continue operating,' she said in a statement. 'I cannot and do not want to be associated with events that accept this kind of sponsorship.' Following Ms Thunberg's withdrawal, and on the eve of the festival, over 50 authors published an open letter calling on the EIBF to end its relationship with Baillie Gifford. In May 2024, the EIBF announced it was doing just that. The Hay Festival, also sponsored by Baillie Gifford, announced the same decision a week earlier. Full disclosure: I was entirely on the side of the authors in the 2023 row and had little time or patience for the arguments of those who opposed them. Certainly not the cultural warriors of the right, who viewed the campaign as a chance to pour scorn on the 'wokerati' – but not even those festival directors and high-placed arts practitioners in the invidious position of having to defend tie-ins with companies such as Baillie Gifford. Grow up, they said, the arts wouldn't exist in their current form without this sort of corporate sponsorship. Really? I'm not so sure. Anyway, if you're right would that be such a bad thing? Fast forward another year and we have just had the launch of the 2025 EIBF. In the absence of Baillie Gifford as a corporate sponsor (a relationship which was always and self-evidently transactional in nature) we now have (cue drum roll) Sir Ian Rankin. As revealed in The Herald, the sainted knight has stepped in – though stepped up might be a better phrase – and agreed to help back the festival financially, along with fellow author Jenny Colgan and other organisations and companies including Edinburgh-based legal firm Digby Brown and privately funded arts charity the Hawthornden Foundation. I'm not saying it was easy to fill the funding gap left by Baillie Gifford, and I don't know how well it has been plugged, but the festival has announced its largest number of events since the pre-pandemic days. Just saying. But don't think this issue is going away. Even as I write this, in Tel Aviv Greta Thunberg is being forced onto a plane, a method of travel she abhors and avoids for conscientious reasons. This is following her detainment while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza aboard UK-flagged humanitarian vessel The Madleen. Greta Thunberg was detained by Israeli authorities while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza (Image: AP) Along with the wider situation in Gaza and the West Bank and the ongoing climate emergency – and as tensions, tempers, emotions and body counts mount – there will be more and more scrutiny by more and more activists of more and more companies and institutions with links to, say, arms sales to Israel or fossil fuels or [insert injustice of your choice]. This will inevitably impact on the UK's arts institution and, as Edinburgh gears up for August, it will be inevitably be felt in Scotland. Actually it already is. A body signing itself the 'Edinburgh International Festivals' was one of the co-signatories supporting a recent open letter by Sir Alistair Spalding and Britannia Morton of London's Sadler's Wells venue published in the Financial Times (ha!). In it the authors complained about the 'relentless negativity' of 'activist groups' such as the one which 'pushed out' Baillie Gifford from its place as a sponsor of the arts. They added: '[P]artnering with businesses ensures our work goes further and has a greater impact. It adds more value and enables growth, ambition and risk taking.' Quoted in The Art Newspaper last week, corporate fundraising expert Martin Prendergast addressed the open letter and said 'the causes are right but the targets are wrong'. But creative producer Naomi Russell had a different take. 'I think protest and resistance drive change and historically this has great precedent,' she told the publication. 'That can be uncomfortable for the powers and established structures.' And so we come full circle: which side are you on? It's a question being asked a lot these days. Think carefully before you answer. Read more: Reel life Do you remember your first time? No not that. I mean the first time you realised there was more to the big screen than the latest James Bond or superhero offering. The first time you had your eyes opened to the kinds of films that maybe did not have car chases or shoot-outs and maybe did have subtitles and which – just as important – were shown in venues dedicated to what you later learned was called 'art-house cinema'. If you don't, I'm sorry. If you do, you'll know why I'm so delighted that Edinburgh's Filmhouse has announced its re-opening date: Friday June 27, just in time for this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) to return to its spiritual home. I was 16 the first time I went to the Filmhouse – in 1982, to see Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva. It was also the first subtitled film I had ever seen. A little later, still at school, I saw Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film Rumble Fish. It's still my favourite of his films and definitely in my all-time top five. Matt Dillon in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film Rumble Fish (Image: Universal/Criterion) In the same year I also saw director Nicolas Roeg discuss working with Gene Hackman in a Q&A following a screening of Roeg's film Eureka. Many decades later I found myself in my usual spot on the back row of Cinema One and chatting to an older man in the next seat. I told him about my love of the Filmhouse, and about these seminal events in my cinematic life and how vividly I could still remember them. It turned out I was talking to former EIFF director Jim Hickey, who ran the Filmhouse between 1979 and 1993. He was the one on stage interviewing Roeg that night 30 or so years earlier. I could have cried. Him too, probably. It's a very personal story, but it is in no way meaningless because so many people in Edinburgh have similar ones to tell. That's why the Filmhouse's absence since the collapse in 2022 of parent organisation the Centre for the Moving Image has left such a huge hole. Sure there's still work to do to keep Filmhouse 2.0 afloat. But now, thanks to the efforts of those who battled to keep the flame alive, it has returned. Eureka! Read more: And finally The Herald's theatre critic Neil Cooper has been busy recently. His peregrinations have taken him first to Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum where he watched The Mountaintop, a production of Katori Hall's Olivier Award-winning play about Martin Luther King Jr's last night alive. Five stars for that one. Just around the corner at the Traverse Theatre he took in Ramesh Meyyappan's radical reworking of King Lear, then watched the entertaining Meme Girls at Oran Mor in Glasgow, part of the ongoing A Play, A Pie And A Pint season, and hot-footed it to Pitlochry for Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed, the latest chapter in the cult Aberdeenshire writer's move from the margins of literary history to the centre. Elsewhere music critics Keith Bruce and Teddy Jamieson have also been busy, Keith at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall where he heard the Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform 'the mighty juggernaut' that is Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No 11 and Teddy at Glasgow's O2 Academy where he watched Morrissey. A slew of Smiths songs will have pleased many in the audience but Teddy was left wondering who the bequiffed Narcissus is really addressing these days.
The Herald Scotland
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Can Scottish arts community survive without its sponsors?
A quick recap, then a look at why this matters. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg pulled out of an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) in 2023 on account of its long-standing relationship with Edinburgh-based investment firm Baillie Gifford. She viewed this hook-up as an example of 'green-washing' by a firm gaining from investments in companies whose interests were inimical to her beliefs. 'Green-washing efforts by the fossil fuel industry, including sponsorship of cultural events, allow them to keep the social license to continue operating,' she said in a statement. 'I cannot and do not want to be associated with events that accept this kind of sponsorship.' Following Ms Thunberg's withdrawal, and on the eve of the festival, over 50 authors published an open letter calling on the EIBF to end its relationship with Baillie Gifford. In May 2024, the EIBF announced it was doing just that. The Hay Festival, also sponsored by Baillie Gifford, announced the same decision a week earlier. Full disclosure: I was entirely on the side of the authors in the 2023 row and had little time or patience for the arguments of those who opposed them. Certainly not the cultural warriors of the right, who viewed the campaign as a chance to pour scorn on the 'wokerati' – but not even those festival directors and high-placed arts practitioners in the invidious position of having to defend tie-ins with companies such as Baillie Gifford. Grow up, they said, the arts wouldn't exist in their current form without this sort of corporate sponsorship. Really? I'm not so sure. Anyway, if you're right would that be such a bad thing? Fast forward another year and we have just had the launch of the 2025 EIBF. In the absence of Baillie Gifford as a corporate sponsor (a relationship which was always and self-evidently transactional in nature) we now have (cue drum roll) Sir Ian Rankin. As revealed in The Herald, the sainted knight has stepped in – though stepped up might be a better phrase – and agreed to help back the festival financially, along with fellow author Jenny Colgan and other organisations and companies including Edinburgh-based legal firm Digby Brown and privately funded arts charity the Hawthornden Foundation. I'm not saying it was easy to fill the funding gap left by Baillie Gifford, and I don't know how well it has been plugged, but the festival has announced its largest number of events since the pre-pandemic days. Just saying. But don't think this issue is going away. Even as I write this, in Tel Aviv Greta Thunberg is being forced onto a plane, a method of travel she abhors and avoids for conscientious reasons. This is following her detainment while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza aboard UK-flagged humanitarian vessel The Madleen. Greta Thunberg was detained by Israeli authorities while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza (Image: AP) Along with the wider situation in Gaza and the West Bank and the ongoing climate emergency – and as tensions, tempers, emotions and body counts mount – there will be more and more scrutiny by more and more activists of more and more companies and institutions with links to, say, arms sales to Israel or fossil fuels or [insert injustice of your choice]. This will inevitably impact on the UK's arts institution and, as Edinburgh gears up for August, it will be inevitably be felt in Scotland. Actually it already is. A body signing itself the 'Edinburgh International Festivals' was one of the co-signatories supporting a recent open letter by Sir Alistair Spalding and Britannia Morton of London's Sadler's Wells venue published in the Financial Times (ha!). In it the authors complained about the 'relentless negativity' of 'activist groups' such as the one which 'pushed out' Baillie Gifford from its place as a sponsor of the arts. They added: '[P]artnering with businesses ensures our work goes further and has a greater impact. It adds more value and enables growth, ambition and risk taking.' Quoted in The Art Newspaper last week, corporate fundraising expert Martin Prendergast addressed the open letter and said 'the causes are right but the targets are wrong'. But creative producer Naomi Russell had a different take. 'I think protest and resistance drive change and historically this has great precedent,' she told the publication. 'That can be uncomfortable for the powers and established structures.' And so we come full circle: which side are you on? It's a question being asked a lot these days. Think carefully before you answer. Read more: Reel life Do you remember your first time? No not that. I mean the first time you realised there was more to the big screen than the latest James Bond or superhero offering. The first time you had your eyes opened to the kinds of films that maybe did not have car chases or shoot-outs and maybe did have subtitles and which – just as important – were shown in venues dedicated to what you later learned was called 'art-house cinema'. If you don't, I'm sorry. If you do, you'll know why I'm so delighted that Edinburgh's Filmhouse has announced its re-opening date: Friday June 27, just in time for this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) to return to its spiritual home. I was 16 the first time I went to the Filmhouse – in 1982, to see Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva. It was also the first subtitled film I had ever seen. A little later, still at school, I saw Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film Rumble Fish. It's still my favourite of his films and definitely in my all-time top five. Matt Dillon in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film Rumble Fish (Image: Universal/Criterion) In the same year I also saw director Nicolas Roeg discuss working with Gene Hackman in a Q&A following a screening of Roeg's film Eureka. Many decades later I found myself in my usual spot on the back row of Cinema One and chatting to an older man in the next seat. I told him about my love of the Filmhouse, and about these seminal events in my cinematic life and how vividly I could still remember them. It turned out I was talking to former EIFF director Jim Hickey, who ran the Filmhouse between 1979 and 1993. He was the one on stage interviewing Roeg that night 30 or so years earlier. I could have cried. Him too, probably. It's a very personal story, but it is in no way meaningless because so many people in Edinburgh have similar ones to tell. That's why the Filmhouse's absence since the collapse in 2022 of parent organisation the Centre for the Moving Image has left such a huge hole. Sure there's still work to do to keep Filmhouse 2.0 afloat. But now, thanks to the efforts of those who battled to keep the flame alive, it has returned. Eureka! Read more: And finally The Herald's theatre critic Neil Cooper has been busy recently. His peregrinations have taken him first to Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum where he watched The Mountaintop, a production of Katori Hall's Olivier Award-winning play about Martin Luther King Jr's last night alive. Five stars for that one. Just around the corner at the Traverse Theatre he took in Ramesh Meyyappan's radical reworking of King Lear, then watched the entertaining Meme Girls at Oran Mor in Glasgow, part of the ongoing A Play, A Pie And A Pint season, and hot-footed it to Pitlochry for Nan Shepherd: Naked And Unashamed, the latest chapter in the cult Aberdeenshire writer's move from the margins of literary history to the centre. Elsewhere music critics Keith Bruce and Teddy Jamieson have also been busy, Keith at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall where he heard the Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform 'the mighty juggernaut' that is Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No 11 and Teddy at Glasgow's O2 Academy where he watched Morrissey. A slew of Smiths songs will have pleased many in the audience but Teddy was left wondering who the bequiffed Narcissus is really addressing these days.
Daily Record
30-05-2025
- Daily Record
The hidden risks of public transport and what you can do if you're injured
Public transport is a unique mode of transport as you, the passenger, put your life in the hands of a total stranger, writes David Nellaney, Partner at Digby Brown. What provides assurance is the knowledge that the person in control of the vehicle - be it a taxi, bus, ferry, plane or train - is a professional. They are trained, licensed and insured to a high standard to deliver a reliable and safe service. Arguably, they should be safer than any other mode of transport as they are also more likely to be vigilant, follow speed limits more strictly, and handle the vehicle smoothly. And yet, over the last year or so, it feels like there's been a rise in public transport accidents, especially bus and coach accidents. In March this year, the M8 ground to a halt after a bus crashed near the junction 30 turn off at Bishopton. In December 2024, there were two bus crashes within days of each other - and both involved low bridges. The first saw a double-decker collide with a railway bridge on Cook Street in Glasgow, then five days later, another struck a low bridge on Culzean Crescent in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire. Both incidents left multiple people injured, many of whom needed hospital treatment. In Paisley last year, five people were injured after a single-decker ploughed into a block of flats. Similarly, homeowners in Airth near Falkirk were injured after a coach left the road and smashed into a row of houses. To be fair, it's not just buses. All modes of public transport have their risks, and as we've seen in the past, accidents can happen anywhere. Last summer, Digby Brown settled claims for passengers of the ferry MV Alfred after it ran aground on an uninhabited island near Orkney. We also helped Ayr man Stephen McIntyre after he was struck by a taxi that crossed into his side of the road. And families affected by the Stonehaven rail disaster turned to Digby Brown for help where we recovered more than £1million for those affected. Whether you are on a bus, taxi, train, ferry or plane, it is the duty of those in control of these modes of transport to ensure your safety. We know professional drivers don't set out to injure people. But through our experience, the sad reality is that most crashes are the result of human error. If a mechanical fault arises that impacts safety they should stop, not continue and hope for the best while hoping to deal with it later. If there's torrential rain or wind, then those in charge should slow down or stop entirely - simply plodding on and blaming the bad weather if things go wrong isn't good enough. This was confirmed in another legal win for Digby Brown when we helped 17 people recover compensation after their coach was blown over in high winds near Loch Lomond. And when it comes to buses and low bridges… well, the driver is ultimately responsible for driving to the road conditions and responding to hazards that lie ahead. Blaming a sat nav or a route diversion is no excuse. The precise circumstances of incidents are nearly always different, but what remains constant is that if you were injured as a result of someone else's negligence, then you have rights. When you use public transport, you are a passenger in a vehicle, and other people are responsible for your safety. So, with a public transport claim or passenger injury claim, a solicitor will look to recover all relevant details, just like any other accident claim: Having as much information and evidence as possible helps build a clear, thorough and accurate picture that can strengthen your case and secure a fair result.
The Independent
06-05-2025
- The Independent
Six-figure damages agreed over boarding school abuse claims
A man who claims he was abused at a private boarding school has reached an out-of-court settlement for a six-figure sum in damages. Angus Bell claimed he suffered in a 'madhouse of violence and psychological abuse' at Loretto School in Musselburgh, East Lothian in the 1990s. A civil trial, thought to be the first in Scotland involving pupil-on-pupil abuse, had been due to take place at the Court of Session in Edinburgh in early June. However, Digby Brown Solicitors, representing Mr Bell, said an out of court settlement for a six-figure sum has now been reached. Loretto School said that, in the school now, child protection, wellbeing and the happiness of all pupils is its 'top priority'. Mr Bell, who is in his 40s and lives in Canada, said the abuse he suffered was 'life-changing' and previously described it as 'a cross between The Purge and The Running Man'. Speaking after the settlement was reached, Mr Bell, who has waived his right to anonymity, said: 'I entered Loretto as a tiny, defenceless, 10-year-old boy. 'I endured eight years of abuse, 34 years of post traumatic stress disorder, four and a half years of legal battle and, in the end, that little boy beat the system.' Loretto was one of a number of boarding schools investigated by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), which found that some children suffered abuse there. Pete Richardson, Head of Loretto School, said: 'We can confirm that the matter has been resolved in terms agreed with Mr Bell. 'Whilst we do not intend to comment on the detail of matters raised by Mr Bell, what has been averred in the court action is not congruent with our understanding of the experience of others at Loretto at that time. 'The whole question of behaviours in Loretto over the years has been considered in detail by SCAI. 'We continue to support the work of SCAI and, where wrongdoing has been recognised in the past, we have made an unreserved apology – we would encourage anyone with an interest in this matter to look at the excellent work done by SCAI. 'In the Loretto of today, child protection, wellbeing and the happiness of all pupils is our top priority.' The SCAI, which aims to raise public awareness of the abuse of children in care, is considering evidence up to December 17 2014, and which is within the living memory of any person who suffered abuse. Richard Pitts, partner at Digby Brown, who led Mr Bell's legal action, said: 'Angus has been strong, calm and resilient throughout his entire journey and I commend him for what he has been able to do because he has not just secured justice for himself – in all likelihood he has opened the doors to help others get the outcome they deserve, too.'
