James McLaughlin rode professionally on the European circuit and had ambitions to make the highest level. <\/p>\n
He achieved two top 10 finishes in races while representing Guernsey in the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and 2018, and also raced in Delhi in 2010.<\/p>\n
This week at a pre-trial hearing in the Central London County Court, the extent of his injuries from the crash in May 2020 were laid out. <\/p>\n
He was working as a cycle courier in London at the time and riding in a cycle lane in West Wickham, south-east London. <\/p>\n
The passenger car door was opened into his path. <\/p>\n
Insurers for the motorist and passenger are accepting liability for the accident, but disputing the amount of the compensation claim and whether Mr McLaughlin, now 34, received a brain injury. <\/p>\n
The cyclist says the accident, where he was thrown from his bike, left him with serious injuries and brain damaged, leading to depression, memory loss, fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorder. <\/p>\n
It is agreed that he damaged his shoulder and elbow in the crash. <\/p>\n
He relies on an emotional support dog which was not allowed to accompany him into court. <\/p>\n
His lawyer told the court that he had been plagued by problems as a result of his injuries, including poor concentration and memory, as well as anxiety and distress. <\/p>\n
A neuropsychologist who examined him considered he had suffered a concussion after his head was \u2018shaken around\u2019 in the crash.<\/p>\n
He also said that Mr McLaughlin could have returned to top cycling but the accident had meant he had \u2018lost his cycling career\u2019.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the insurance company have challenged the brain injury claim, and said there was no mention of Mr McLaughlin suffering a blow to the head at the time of the crash. <\/p>\n
A full trial of the claim was originally scheduled for this year, but now could be delayed after the judge agreed that further neurological evidence could be introduced.<\/p>\n
Mr McLaughlin would be considered one of Guernsey\u2019s best-ever competitive cyclists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James McLaughlin rode professionally on the European circuit and had ambitions to make the highest level. He achieved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-37837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}