Scottish woman awarded £1.2 million for food poisoning

A former midwife who was left crippled by salmonella after eating in a Chinese restaurant in Scotland was given £1.2 million in compensation today. Margaret-Ann Reynard, 40, suffered devastating food poisoning after visiting Latours, a Chinese restaurant in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, on her 35th birthday. Today, the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh awarded Mrs Reynard the damages after hearing how her career and plans to start a family were left in ruins when she developed debilitating reactive arthritis as a result of the infection. At an earlier hearing, Exquisite Quisine, the company that ran Latours, which has now closed, admitted liability for Mrs Reynard's illness. "I’m happy about the award but I would give all the money away to have my old life back," Mrs Reynard told the Scottish Press Association. "This has robbed me of all my health, hopes and dreams. The mental and physical agony has been devastating." "I loved my job, I lived for my work being a midwife and delivering babies but I can never do that or any work ever again. I wanted to start a family with my husband and have babies of our own but I can’t because the drugs I have to take for the rest of my life are too toxic for pregnancy," she said. Mrs Reynard ate a meal of chicken, egg fried rice and sweet and sour sauce at Latours on October 14, 2000. In the days afterwards, she was admitted to hospital, where she suffered 17 days of diarrhoea and a terrible swelling of her joints. After taking time off, Mrs Reynard tried to returned to her job but last year she was forced to retired from her post with Ayrshire and Arran Health Board on the grounds of ill-health. Today, Mrs Reynard, who walks with a stick and needs full time care, was awarded £1,243,082 in damages, which included £627,730 for the loss of her earnings as a midwife until her retirement and pension rights. She was also awarded £397,304 for the cost of caring for her in the past and in the future.