How To Claim With Prison Injury Lawyers

If you have been injured in a prison and it was not your fault, then you could be entitled to claim compensation. Prisons owe prisoners various s legal duties to keep them safe in some capacity. They also owe duties to guards, prison officers and other employees. We will explore these duties owed to you and how prison injury lawyers could help you claim compensation.

We will also discuss how you could claim personal injury compensation on a No Win No Fee basis. Additionally, we’ll look at what support a lawyer can provide during the claims process.

You can contact one of our team to learn more about how to claim compensation.

  • Talk to an advisor by calling 0800 408 7825.
  • Request a call back using our ‘contact us’ form.
  • Discuss your case with an advisor using our live-chat.

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Do I Need Prison Injury Lawyers To Help Me Claim?

If you have been injured in a prison you could be eligible to claim compensation. Claims could be made for accidents such as slips and falls, accidents at work, or assaults involving inmates. Prisoners or staff members could potentially bring these claims.

You do not need to use prison injury lawyers in order to claim compensation. You could claim directly against the prison service without a solicitor, but you may not know under what grounds to make a claim.

In order to make a prison injury claim, you will need to prove that you meet the personal injury claims eligibility requirements. To show this, you need to demonstrate that:

  • The prison owed you a duty of care.
  • That they failed to meet this duty.
  • That you were harmed as a result of the breach.

Duties That Might Be Owed To You

There are various duties that might apply to prisoners or staff members, and they include:

  • To ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of employees under Health and Safety At Work, etc. Act 1974 (HAWASA). This can apply to prisoners working for the prison during their sentence as well as staff members. A breach of this duty could give rise to an accident at work claim.
  • Taking reasonable steps to ensure the reasonable safety of visitors under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. A breach of this duty could lead to a public liability claim.
  • A duty to provide the minimum standard of medical care from medical professionals e.g. when being treated by the prison doctor or in the infirmary. A breach of this duty could lead to a medical negligence claim.

These are just some of the duties owed to those inhabiting or working in a prison. If you have been injured and you think it was someone else’s fault, you can contact our team to discuss your specific circumstances.

How Could A Prison Injury Lawyer Help Me?

A prison injury lawyer can help you claim compensation. We have looked at some duties that might apply to you from the prison, and specialist legal advice on this matter will certainly help you. In addition to being owed a duty of care, you must prove that it was breached and this was what caused your injury, and a lawyer can help you gather the evidence for this.

Some examples of a breach of duty could include:

  • A guard spills something on the floor and doesn’t clean it up or put out a wet floor sign. This causes you to slip and fall, breaking your ankle.
  • Despite a previous violent behaviour towards you and under the threat of fresh attack from a violent inmate, no safety measures are put in place, and you are left alone with this violent individual. You are assaulted and suffer injury.
  • The prison does not have sufficient lighting in a stairwell, and this causes you to miss a step and fall, suffering an injury.

Other Ways That A Prison Lawyer Can Help You

In addition to advising you about how a duty that was owed to you was breached, prison injury lawyers could also:

  • Gather evidence such as accident report forms, CCTV footage, prison records or medical records.
  • Arrange an independent medical assessment to detail your injuries.
  • Liaising with the prison service on your behalf.
  • Make sure you claim all the compensation that you are entitled to.
  • Handle your case within the correct time limit and within the legal framework.
  • Taking witness statements in support of your case.
  • Fill in forms on your behalf.

A prison injury lawyer could help you to claim compensation for injuries sustained in prison. Experienced personal injury lawyers will have handled other prison claims and will also have access to case histories.

What Prison Injuries Could A Lawyer Help Me Claim For?

As there are a wide range of accident claims that can happen in a prison, there is a wide range of injuries you could suffer. These could include:

Injuries could be suffered from accidents involving prison officers or from a failure to adequately protect vulnerable prisoners. To find out if the injuries you suffered in prison could entitle you to claim compensation, please get in touch with us today. You can contact us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Do Prison Injury Lawyers Work On A No Win No Fee Basis?

If you have suffered a prison injury as a prisoner or prison officer and would like to work with a solicitor, you may be wondering how to fund their services. Our panel of solicitors may be able to work with you on a No Win No Fee basis through a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA).

Under a Conditional Fee Agreement you will not need to pay your solicitor for their work either at the start of your claim or whilst it is being conducted. If your claim against the prison authorities is unsuccessful, you won’t need to pay anything for your solicitor’s work.

If you do win your claim, your No Win No Fee solicitor will deduct a success fee from your compensation. This percentage is legally restricted.

How Long Would My Prison Injury Claim Take To Settle?

How long prison injury claims take to settle is dependent on several factors. Examples of different factors which could affect how long a personal injury claim may include:

  • The severity of your injury. Injuries which are more complex or which are more severe may take longer to fully assess.
  • The duration of your recovery could impact how long it takes to claim.
  • Whether the prison authorities as the party responsible for your safety, accept their liability for the injuries. If they do not do so, a claim may need to go to court.
  • The complexity of the legal issues involved in your case.

As these factors and others can influence how long a claim may take, the length of time claims take to conclude can greatly vary.

Contact us to find out more about prison injury lawyers and whether you could be eligible to work with one from our panel.

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Would I Need A Lawyer If My Prison Injury Claim Went To Court?

If the prison authorities do not accept liability for your injury or you think they have made a low compensation offer, your claim may need to go to court.

Claimants can represent themselves, and you do not need to use a solicitor or lawyer to claim compensation, even if your case goes to the courts. Representing yourself could mean that you need to fill out court paperwork and put together a court case proving how the prison was liable for your injuries and what you should be awarded in compensation.

One of the No Win No Fee prison injury lawyers from our panel could help you to put together your claim. They are experienced in the court process and know the steps to take. A solicitor could help you to navigate the different steps in the personal injury claims process.

Find out how to make prisoner or prison officer injury claims by contacting our team.

How Can Our Panel Of Solicitors Help You Make A Prison Injury Claim?

Our panel of prison injury lawyers are experienced in helping people to make personal injury claims. They can help you in all types of personal injury cases.

You can contact an advisor from our team today for a free and no-obligation assessment of your circumstances. If the advisor thinks you have a valid claim, they could connect you to a specialist personal injury lawyer for prisoners or prison officers from our panel.

  • Phone us today on 0800 408 7825.
  • Contact us to request a call back from our team.
  • Click on the live chat pop-up to talk to us.

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More Resources Related To Claiming Personal Injury Compensation

Below, we have included further personal injury compensation claim resources as well as external resources.

Related guides on our site

Additional resources

Thank you for reading our guide to prison injury lawyers. If you have any further questions, please contact our team.