AN East Yorkshire man who is permanently wheelchair-bound after a car accident will receive more than £2 million in compensation in a landmark House of Lords ruling.

Michael Gawler, from the Market Weighton area, was left paralysed from the waist down after being involved in a serious crash on the A1034 at Sancton in 2004.

Mr Gawler was a front-seat passenger in a car driven by his friend, Paul Raettig, when it left the road. Aged 24 at the time, he sustained a serious spinal injury which resulted in paralysis.

Damages were initially agreed at £2.7 million, but that was cut by a quarter because Mr Gawler had not been wearing a seatbelt at the time.

Mr Raettig's solicitors argued the compensation should have been cut by half for that reason. They launched an appeal and were allowed to "leapfrog" the case directly to the House of Lords, but the most senior court in the land has now refused it.

If the appeal had been granted, it would have marked a change in the law - with serious implications for other crash victims not wearing seatbelts.

Mr Gawler's solicitor Peter Stringer, an associate in the Leeds office of solicitors' firm Stewart's, said: "We believe that 25 per cent is a fair deduction in cases such as this where the claimant's injuries would have been much less severe had he been wearing a seatbelt. It recognises that the majority of blame must lie with the driver whose negligent driving caused the accident in the first place."