DISFIGURED FACE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29469, 22 March 1961, Page 21

DISFIGURED FACE

£32,400 Damages Awarded (N.Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 20. A woman who suffered serious facial disfigurement in a car accident was awarded £32,400 damages by a Supreme Court jury today. She is Venetta Thelma Coulter, aged 50, of Newtown, an inner suburb. A doctor described her injurie's as the worst he had seen. He said they reminded him of a soldier who had been struck by an anti-tank shell. The award was against Kevin Shepherd, of Enmore, a western suburb. Mrs Coulter was a passenger in a car driven by Shepherd when it came into collision with a semi-trailer in November. 1953. She was thrown through the windscreen of the car. Mr Clive Evatt, Q.C., said her face was nearly sheered off, and she had lost her left eye. When bandages were removed from her face, after plastic surgery, in which bones from her hip were used, she was so horrified she could not believe the face was hers, Mr Evatt said. Her sense of taste and smell also had been impaired.