A high-flying primary school teacher who was ruled to have had her career cut short by a car crash was stripped of more than £20,000 of a compensation award by Court of Appeal judges yesterday.

Deputy headteacher Helen Williams, 46, was driving between Crook and Hunwick, in County Durham, when her car was in collision with another vehicle, two days before Christmas, 1995.

The other motorist admitted liability for the accident which left Mrs Williams with spinal injuries which, a judge decided, had prevented her from going on to become a headteacher.

At Newcastle County Court last February, The Recorder, Mr Alistair McDonald, awarded her £225,806 damages.

But yesterday, the Court of Appeal stripped £22,000 off that figure after ruling that there was a 40 per cent chance that pre-existing back trouble would have stopped her fulfilling her dream of becoming a headteacher, regardless of the accident.

Mrs Williams, the deputy headteacher at New Brancepeth Primary School in County Durham, had been praised as "a very strong candidate for headship" by Mr Recorder McDonald.

He said that she would probably have become a headteacher by 2003 and worked until retirement in 2014.

But yesterday, defence counsel Phillip Kramer, told the Appeal Court: "Without her back problem Mrs Williams would have been an excellent candidate for headship.

"But given her pre-existing disability, her chances of obtaining a job as a head teacher were very small."

Mr Justice Harrison, sitting, with Lord Justice Laws, said there was "significant evidence of a degenerative change in her spine pre-dating the accident".

He said Mr Recorder McDonald had been wrong to assess her claim on the basis that she would almost certainly have been made a headteacher by September 2003 had it not been for the accident.

Lord Justice Laws agreed that the damages awarded tok Mrs Williams should be reduced to £203,806.

Mrs Williams, who is still deputy headteacher at New Brancepeth Primary School, declined to comment after the hearing.