Talk:Lance Percival

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Tries but fails, on both, thee times out of three. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:07, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Damages for car crash

An IP editor has reverted my edit on damages paid by Percival following the fatal car accident. The edit comment was

• I have changed yet again the repeated attempts to falsify the amount of compensation paid due to this accident. I have been in discussion both with the passenger and the son of the deceased

My version was based on this source:

• "Percival to pay £5,200". The Guardian. London. 27 July 1974. p. 12.

I accessed this through ProQuest, to which my public library provides access. This URL may work if you have a login. This article says:

[...] The court increased from £18,331 to £25,531 damages awarded to Mrs. Jillian Young, aged 31, for the death of her husband [...]

Last year Mr. Percival [...] agreed to pay damages totalling £12,250 to his two passengers. Yesterday Mrs Young [...] won her appeal for an increase in her award [...]

After the judgement it was disclosed [...] that Mrs Young had turned down an offer of £27,536 two days before the start of the action [...]

I wrote 'a total of £35,781 in damages', based on adding £12,250 and £25,531.

We should not let an editor's private conversations several years after the events override a reliable source. However, we should recheck our reasoning. Possible issues are:

1. The Guardian may have made a mistake. They used to have a reputation for spelling mistakes, but not for significant errors of fact.
2. Our contributor may have misunderstood the son and the passenger, or they may have got it wrong. I am not questioning their good faith.
3. The judgement might have been reversed on appeal to the House of Lords. This would almost certainly have been uncovered when I searched for sources.
4. The lawyers may have got the money. As I understand it, the party found liable normally has to pay the costs of all parties. However, this may have been changed because the widow rejected a pre-trial offer that was higher than final award, so she may have had to pay costs that used up most or all of the damages. The current legal position is discussed in Costs in English law#Rejection of offers, although the law may have been different in at the time.

The cited source clearly supports my version. If the widow had to pay the costs then it is still accurate to say the Percival paid the damages, although if the costs consumed the damages then it may be considered to be misleading not to say so.

It is likely that the damages were paid by Percival's insurers, not by him personally. Should we say this?

Martinevans123, what is your view on this? Verbcatcher (talk) 17:04, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

That looks perfectly reasonable. £35,781 (1974 money?) looks like simple sums. Nobody gets to edit Wikipedia by citing "discussion both with the passenger and the son of the deceased." As I pointed out in my edit summary, I was concerned that two of the sources are now deadlinks. Also the two links to The Guardian are offline. The YouTube source is obviously a piece of self-published WP:OR that should be removed, although it does contain perfectly believable images of contemporary newspaper stories which themselves could probably used as sources: e.g. Perceval's four-hour operation at Moorfields Eye Hospital, his 123 stitches and the location of the crash was "Death Hill" on the A20 (but no music credit - shameful). Martinevans123 (talk) 17:17, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I have restore my text and modified it. I have asked about the costs issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law#English law: costs when damages are lower than a pre-trial offer. Verbcatcher (talk) 02:01, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:24, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Would it help any if the ProQuest link was added to the reference. The title of that Guardian article may seem misleading to some readers? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

A ProQuest link might help, but I'm not sure whether the URL I used is correct, as it may include information relating to my logged-in session. However, I will add a quote to the citation to clarify what the article says. Verbcatcher (talk) 19:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. That's s good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:46, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Clivemasters, as requested here and on your talk page, please do not make contentious edits to the section on the car crash without participating in the discussion on this talk page. Your latest edit appears to be promoting a point of view (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). Your edit summary was:

• Deleted the amount of damages converted to its value today, clearly an attempt to make the paltry sum paid sound much more than it is

In addition to deleting current equivalent value you have deleted 'apparently' from 'apparently while racing another driver' and added 'only' to 'paid a total of £35,781'.

Adding 'only' is clearly editorialising. Removing 'apparently' is saying that he was definitely racing, for which no source is provided. Moreover, I have looked at the cited sources again and cannot find any suggestion that he was racing, so this phrase should be deleted.

I did not add the current value 'to make the paltry sum paid sound much more', but for clarification, as is normal in these circumstances. Of course the damages were scant compensation for the death of a husband and father, but they were substantial in the context of a road crash and indicate that the court placed the responsibility on Percival. Giving the current value underlines this, I am not attempting to whitewash Percival.

We should remove the citation of the YouTube video, not because it is inaccurate or partisan but because the video violates the copyright of the newspaper cuttings that are shown, and probably also the copyright of the music which sounds like a commercial recording. We are not allowed to link to copyright violations, see WP:ELNEVER. If you can give reliable citations of these newspaper cuttings shown then they could be cited directly. However, the paragraph is adequately sourced by the other citations.

On a related issue, it seems that Percival faced a criminal charge of causing death by dangerous driving for this crash.[1][2] However, I cannot find any sources relating to a trial, and in view of his press coverage at the time it seems likely that the case was dropped before it came to court. In the absence of sources about a criminal trial I think we should omit this.

I will restore the current value, remove 'only' and remove the phrase about 'racing another driver'. If you think this is inappropriate them please discuss it here. Verbcatcher (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I have added 'and was charged with causing death by dangerous driving' which is in one of the cited sources.[3] I think this is appropriate, if we had sources that say he was tried or convicted then we would say so. Verbcatcher (talk) 19:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Wholly agree. Thanks for spotting that. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:11, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Further to this discussion, Newspaper reports of the time indicate that a settlement had been turned down prior to the suit for damages. At that court the damages awarded were much lower than the settlement that had been offered. Following the appeal, the judge determined that the previous case had not given full weight to the evidence about the career prospects of the deceased and accordingly increased the amount, although this was still some £2000 less than had originally been offered. Damages were also paid to the two passenges who were travelling in Lance Percivals car. I haven't put this on the actual page as I felt the incident already had sufficient coverage, but I then spotted this section on the talk page. The A20 has been extensively altered since 1970, but the "notorious" section was an 'S' bend just to the north of Charton Manor which had seen numerous incidents and at least seven fatalities in as many years prior to this incident. Mighty Antar (talk) 23:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Not the Nine O'Clock News

Percival sometimes appeared in this satirical show. [[4]] Stub Mandrel (talk) 09:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see him in that clip. And he doesn't appear in the credits? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:45, 8 March 2022 (UTC)