The Motor Insurers' Bureau is a very fine bureau. And that's despite the fact that it is funded by motor insurers! It is very fine because, as a general rule, if you are personally injured due to the fault of a motorist who was uninsured or cannot be traced then the Bureau will pay you the compensation which would otherwise have been paid had the driver been insured and identified. In some cases, it will pay for property damage as well.
The High Court has just ruled that the Bureau must pay out the victim not only where the accident has occurred on a road or other public place but on private land. The decision came in a case called Lewis v Tindale and others [2018] EWHC 2376 (QB) where the hapless Michael Lewis had been seriously injured in a field. The uninsured driver had travelled in his Nissan along a road, then a footpath and then, quite deliberately, through a barbed wire fence and into the field where Mr Lewis was standing. The Bureau contested the claim that it should have to pay up (so not all that fine on this occasion) but the High Court decided otherwise.
