A LOCAL authority has failed in a bid to claw back thousands of pounds it spent on a teenager crippled in a road accident.

The High Court ruling against South Tyneside Council in the case of 19-year-old Dean Bell is expected to have a far-reaching impact on local authority budgets around the country, and will save insurance companies millions.

Dean was four when he was knocked down in New Road, Boldon Colliery. He suffered head injuries so severe he will need care for the rest of his life.

He was taken into local authority care in 1995 and was placed with foster parents, George and Lily May, of Bideford Gardens, South Shields, who devoted themselves to his needs.

His disabilities are so serious that he is looked after for most of the year at the Campshill Centre, near Wakefield, but goes home to his foster parents for 12 weeks a year.

Through his foster mother, Dean sued the motorist who knocked him down, who admitted liability.

In 1999, the driver's insurers offered to settle his case for £725,000, but that was before South Tyneside Council put in a claim for reimbursement of the money it had spent on Dean's care.

At the High Court, in London, Justice Stanley Burnton was asked to decide whether the council could recoup its costs, and therefore whether Dean's damages pay-out should be greatly increased.

After a detailed analysis of social security rules, the judge said that, as the money would be paid into a trust for Dean's benefit, rather than to the teenager directly, the local authority could recover nothing.

The judge granted the council leave to take its case to the Court of Appeal.