15Mar91 UK: JUDGE FREEZES CLAIMANT'S COMPENSATION FROM BOVIS, TARMAC AND SIR ROBERT MCALPINE UNTIL COSTS ARE DEDUCTED.

A technical officer who fell 8 m down a lift shaft just 12 days before what should have been his wedding day, won more than £24,000 damages in the High Court last week. But the court was told that John Houston would have been better off had he never taken his case this far.Before the hearing he had been offered £25,000 compensation.As a result the 34-year-old Watford man, who Mr Justice MacPherson ruled has himself half to blame for the accident in December 1984, may have ...