Airforce man awarded damages because of personality change following road crash

A once mild-mannered RAF sergeant has been awarded £1.7million compensation after a road accident that radically changed his personality.

Robert Cornes, 43, was a respected aircraft engineer when he was struck by a drink-driver, causing serious brain injuries that transformed his behaviour and made him act aggressively towards women.

At a hearing at London's High Court a judge awarded Mr Cornes the damages after his lawyer successfully argued that the change in his behaviour was a direct result of the injuries he suffered in the crash.

The judge was told that the transformation was so dramatic that he threatened one of his female carers with a knife when she rejected his advances.

It also caused him to display "sexually inappropriate behaviour", an aggressive temper and caused him to use foul language.

The accident happened when Mr Cornes was walking along the street in Witney, Oxfordshire, on the night of July 19 2002 after a car hit a bus shelter that collapsed on top of him.

The driver, David Southwood, of Wood Green, Witney, had been trying to do a handbrake turn at 55mph and was later jailed after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and drink driving.

Mr Cornes spent several weeks in intensive care and, although he made a significant physical recovery, still has problems associated with the brain damage he suffered.

The court heard that since the accident Mr Cornes has threatened neighbours, has been barred from local shops because of his "impulsive and irrational"
behaviour and has said he plans to "take revenge" on the driver who wrecked his life.

'The accident turned my life upside down,' he said.

'My short-term memory is very poor, I am not allowed to drive any more, and I have a problem vocalising inappropriate thoughts about women, rather than physically inappropriate sexual behaviour."

Before the accident, the hearing was told, Mr Cornes was admired by colleagues as one of the most talented and dedicated aircraft engineers at RAF Brize Norton.

However, his barrister, David Pittaway, told the court he is now troubled by "significant behavioural problems", including "increased aggression and sexual disinhibition".

Mr Cornes, the QC said, will need to be looked after and supervised by a team of male professional carers for as long as he lives

Although he lives in his own flat, in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, he cannot work and needs the help of case managers and a team of support workers to get on with everyday life.

Judge Richard Seymour QC said: "The reason why Mr Cornes needs support are not really related to any inability on his part to care for himself in his own home, but rather to the fact that his personality has been altered.

"He is prone to manifest anti-social and disinhibited behaviour...he finds it difficult to devise ways of occupying his time constructively".

The judge said that, without an extensive package of support, Mr Cornes would become "an isolated and lonely individual in the future".