Nicola Crielly, Senior Paralegal at Bonnar Accident Law

Experience

Nicola completed her BA and Masters at Glasgow Caledonian University.

She is a very experienced member of the paralegal team, working closely with one of our directors, Veronica McManus on a variety of challenging personal injury cases.

She is the designated trainer for all new staff and is closely involved with developing and implementing upgrades to the practice management software.

Dog bite - severe facial injuries

Angela Robertson was attacked by a neighbour’s dog in 2011and suffered horrendous facial injuries that made the national news. She had to undergo major reconstructive surgery and receive counselling for PTSD. As often happens in dangerous dog cases, we couldn’t get any response from an insurer or the dog owner, which presented us with a problem because there was no obvious route to securing Angela financial compensation.

We were determined to win Angela’s case and decided that we would proceed to ‘inhibit’ the dog owner’s house (a legal mechanism which enabled us to gain leverage with the insurance company). Very soon thereafter Nicola got a response from the house insurer and achieved a very significant settlement for Angela.

Dog Bite Compensation Claims

Road traffic accident - cyclist.

David Watson was struck by a vehicle whilst out cycling. The vehicle drove off and he only got part of the reg. He reported it to the police and they managed to trace the vehicle and driver, who said he knew nothing about the incident. The insurers repudiated on the basis that it wasn’t their insured, which is a common initial tactic used by defenders who try to repudiate genuine claims by any means. They said that they interviewed the police and they confirmed this. Rather than take their word, however, we carried out our own recognition (police interview), which uncovered the truth of the situation. The insurance company eventually confirmed that it was their insured who was driving.After applying considerable pressure Nicola managed to get the insurers to completely change their position and we got an excellent settlement for David before proceedings were raised.

After applying considerable pressure Nicola managed to get the insurers to completely change their position and we got an excellent settlement for David before proceedings were raised.

Road Traffic Accidents

Accident at work - serious arm injury

Gary Smyth suffered a serious arm injury at work. The problem was that his medical records did not support his version of events. It turned out that the consultant who initially treated him misunderstood the sequence of events leading up to Gary’s injury and wrote down the wrong narrative. This flawed report had been carried through all his follow up appointments. We initially closed the case because of the disparity in the records but after further discussions with the client we found him to be totally credible and decided to investigate further.

Nicola set up a meeting with the hospital and the consultant accepted that he was wrong which enabled us to proceed and win the case.

Arm Injury

Nicola Crielly

Senior Paralegal

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Nicola Crielly

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Nicola’s Recent Cases

Dog bite - severe facial injuries

Road traffic accident - cyclist.

Accident at work - serious arm injury