Mr. Maurice Priestley:

The book is a guideline. As a result of the nature of personal injury claims, many factors are taken into account for an individual claim, and each case is dealt with on its own merits. There are ranges of damages in the book for different injuries of differing severity. Let us say one has a broken leg. There may be three or four different levels of severity for such an injury, and for each level of severity there is a band of valuation. The assessment is, therefore, based on the particular claim, but the book is a guideline, not a restriction as such, so it takes into account current developments in the levels of damages.