Compensation deal for teen hits £23m

A TEENAGER who was paralysed in a car crash which killed her mother is to receive record compensation worth  £23 million.

Cheltenham Ladies College pupil Agnes Collier, now 17, was left with no use of her legs and little function in her arms after the March 2009 accident on the A436 in Gloucestershire.

Her mother Karen Hood, 48, a teacher, died and Agnes’s older brother, Rufus, suffered a serious head injury, from which he has made a good recovery.

Agnes’s father, investment banker Dominic Collier, and stepmother, Jannene, were at London’s High Court yesterday for the approval of a damages award against the insurers of motorist Anthony Norton, who caused the accident when he pulled out of a side road, causing Ms Hood to be hit by an oncoming lorry.