A man who nearly killed his wife with a kitchen knife has been awarded £17,500 compensation for injuring his own hand during the attack after suing the NHS.
A judge concluded that it did not matter if Dorinel Cojanu, 36, had cut his fingers "opening a tin of beans…or whilst attempting to murder his wife."
He was jailed for 11 years in December 2015 for stabbing his then-wife Daniella with an eight-inch blade, who spent almost four months in hospital battling for her life.
Cojanu's claim originated from the fact that he cut his own fingers when stabbing his wife in a drunken stupor, with doctors ruling that his injuries required immediate surgery.
He was sent to Bedford prison and, because he wasn't seen quickly enough, he was left with life-long injuries that restricted the use of his right hand.
The Romanian native, who served just five years of his sentence, launched a compensation claim against the NHS while behind bars.
Documents showed that he had 50% functionality of his right hand, but this would have been 80% had surgery taken place within the ten-day time frame that the NHS missed because of security concerns around transporting him between prison and hospital.
A surgery was pencilled in for a hospital closer to his prison but the NHS admitted that a referral to the Lister was sent but not marked urgent.
This meant that surgery did not take place because an operation for reconstructive surgery on Cojanu's fingers was "no longer feasible" because of the missed time frame.
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At a hearing in May 2021 at Norwich County Court he was awarded £8,500 by a judge who binned most of his claim because he had been dishonest over how he incurred the injury, loss of earnings and medical care costs he claimed he would incur, Mail Online reported.
His team appealed the decision at the High Court, with the judge this week ruling that his compensation be increased to £17,500 while stating that Cojanu being "dishonest" about how he received his injury was not relevant to the claim itself.
Mr Justice Ritchie stated: "The Claimant (Cojanu) did not need to prove how he was cut to win the civil action. He was injured before admission to prison.
"At that time he was not convicted of anything. It matters not whether he had suffered the injury opening a tin of beans, in gang warfare or whilst attempting to murder his wife.
"But the cause of the cut fingers has no relevance to the clinical negligence claim. In my judgment the mechanism of how he cut his finger is incidental to the claim or collateral thereto."
Cojanu was deported back to Romania in June 2020, following his release from Bedford prison.
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