When the conker season approached in autumn last year, articles started appearing in various newspapers, deriding some of the reactions to the perceived risks. One such article was by Sir Simon Jenkins, a former editor of The Times. He started off well, making fun of the use of goggles to play conkers, and pouring scorn on the banning of conker games. Unfortunately, he then descended into stupidity, giving the impression that he knew nothing about the legal processes of this country. He seemed to disapprove of the fact that people should be criticised (and sent to prison in one case) because they have caused injury or death by carelessness.

When Guy Fawkes night approached last year, we had the same critical media coverage.

The newspapers, though, gave no national publicity to the report of the Better Regulation Task Force (an independent body that advises the government), which was published in May 2004. Perhaps that was because of the accusation that the compensation culture “myth” had been fuelled by politicians and the media: “The perception of the ‘compensation culture’ is largely, though not entirely, perpetuated by the media”. “Senior commentators also perpetuate the perception of the ‘compensation culture’ ... It would be helpful if those in positions of influence could resist talking about the ‘compensation culture’”.

The Task Force declared that “the compensation culture is a myth”. They gave us some hard facts; for the years 2000 to 2003, registered accident cases remained about static, spiralling downwards in 2004; only 1.2% of the claims issued in 2002 in the County Court exceeded £25,000.

A fact which might be of even more interest is that a comparison of tort costs in the UK with other countries, as a percentage of GDP, puts us second from the bottom of the table, lower than Switzerland, France, Canada, Japan, Belgium amongst 10 other countries; our percentage is less than a third of America’s.

The Task Force did emphasise that a real problem is caused by the perception that a compensation culture exists. One of the examples singled out by them was the use of advertising by solicitors or claims management companies in hospitals, which they considered to be totally distasteful, apparently because “the vast majority of doctors and nurses do not deliberately set out to harm patients”: a ridiculous comment. They noted that it is the hospitals and surgeries which permit, and receive payment for, these adverts, but they did not highlight the fact that many people are not told that a medical disaster was, or might have been, caused by medical negligence.

The phrase “compensation culture” has come to mean dishonesty at worst, or undignified and inappropriate scrounging at best. It is obviously on the political and legal agenda. Unfortunately, it is not only the media and politicians who are banging this particular drum; the courts seem to be very keen on criticising any claimant, or his lawyers, whose claim fails. The implication is that failure means that the case was not worthy to succeed, and so should never have been brought. All sensible personal injury lawyers know that failure of one side or the other does not necessarily demonstrate any such thing; very often it means only that a judge has taken an unusual, illogical or wrong view of the facts or the law, or that he has reached one of two possible conclusions.

I feel strongly that all reputable personal injury lawyers should stand up for the hundreds of thousands of genuine, honest people in this country who have suffered injury because of the carelessness of another person or organisation, and who have then sued to recover compensation.

I can think of many examples of such people whom I’ve met over the last dozen years. For example, a woman driving along with her husband when an off-duty police officer, driving dangerously, crashed head-on into her car, killing her husband and causing her to lose both legs and one arm. The man on his motor bike who lost both his legs and his wife when one of two young hooligans, racing, crashed into them. The industrial accidents where employers have failed to take elementary safety precautions, leading to the most appalling injuries. Medical negligence at birth, when doctors and medical staff are acting carelessly; the result is often a child born with cerebral palsy, condemned to a life full of difficulty.

That latter example brings to mind a cerebral palsy claim, in which the health authority responsible had failed to admit liability for 12 years; on the day that I spoke to the parents, I read an article in The Times “Ambulance Chasers to be Curbed”, reporting that the Lord Chancellor will take action to curb our “have a go” culture.

Another vivid picture in my mind, taken as a composite from over a thousand such people whom I have had the privilege of meeting, is their dignity, courage, patience, endurance, and humanity. I could expand that list, but my overall impression is so far from this “compensation culture” that I find it offensive to hear people, who should know better, lumping all claimants together. I should like some of them to accompany me on my travels, and see how they feel once they have seen real tragedy and suffering.

I do notice that we don’t hear much from politicians or judges about the appalling way in which some grievously injured people are treated by the system. For example, the victim of a head-on crash who was kept out of her money by a judge whilst various defendants argued about which of them was most to blame; or the catastrophically injured people left by the State to manage on their own, because resources are insufficient.

Of course, the legal system itself is responsible for a great deal of unnecessary cost. If injured people were treated decently by the system from the outset, less would have to be spent on pursuing their claims, and protecting them from the injustice of under-compensation.

The Task Force ended its report by hoping that those who have a genuine claim for redress should find a system which is efficient, effective and easy to follow. That hope followed a list of recommendations to the Government; I wonder how many of those recommendations will be followed.

Maybe those who jump on the compensation culture bandwagon should realise that there are two sorts of claimant; the honest and the dishonest. By far the majority of severely injured claimants are honest, in my experience. We would all deplore the dishonest claims, but that is no reason to offend the genuine sufferers, all of whom would tell both this Government and the Conservative Party that they would far rather put the clock back, have no injury, and no compensation.

If personal injury lawyers could respond to all these attacks, it might eventually alert the public, and possibly even the press and politicians, to the harsh reality, which is that carelessness and bad management cause accidents, and devastating injury; those who seek redress are not disreputable moneygrubbers, but are usually decent people.

BILL BRAITHWAITE QC,