1) The Health and Safety at Work Act which requires risk assessments to be carried out, they must be sufficient, documented, approved by authorised persons and periodically reviewed. To avoid being criminalised by carrying out an “insufficient” risk assessment ( i.e one which failed to include the very thing that went wrong when there is an accident ) people fill up their risk assessments with everything they can think of – even the stupid ideas get included. Rememeber that if you are prosecuted for a breach of health and safety regulations you have to prove yourself innocent – if you can’t, then you are automatically guilty. Fines can be huge , unlimited in some cases and in other cases can result in your going to Jail.

2) No-Win No- Fee offers by Solicitors. When these became legal it encouraged a deluge of claims because people had nothing to lose…so ‘why not claim and see if we can get something out of it ? ‘

3) Advertising by Solicitors. It used to be difficult to find a solicitor but now it is so much easier.

4) The collective effect of Successful Claims. When an MOD typist can get almost 400 k for a poorly thumb and this is splashed across the media it gives a lot of people ideas ( I wonder how much I can get for my grazed knee ? )

I suspect that, taken together these circumstances have helped produce the ridiculous situation in which we find ourselves , such as goggles for blu-tack, no conkers, no ball games etc etc etc.