Feb 5: A man has successfully sued the NHS for £17,500 after cutting his hand while trying to murder his wife. Dorinel Cojanu, 36, sued the public health body for “criminal negligence” while treating his injuries.
Cojanu was jailed for 11 years in 2015 for attempted murder for stabbing his wife with an eight-inch blade in the kitchen of their family home in Watford while drunk.
She was left with permanent scars after being treated in hospital for four months. The blade passed through a lung and into her liver, leaving her with serious injuries.
A Romanian origin, Cojanu, attacked his ex-wife with such force that he was left with deep cuts on two fingers of his right hand.
Despite doctors declaring he needed immediate surgery, he was denied treatment due to security concerns at the Royal Free Hospital in North London. The appointment was not rescheduled elsewhere in the necessary time-frame.
After being jailed in Bedford, Cojanu argued that the inability to treat him soon after he entered the facility had left him with life-changing injuries, so demanded a £125,000 compensation claim against the NHS to operate his right hand in a normal manner, prevented him from working as a manual labourer.
Cojanu only served five years of his sentence, and his compensation package included the payment of surgery in Romania and aftercare.
He was awarded £8,500 at a hearing in May 2021 by judge Recorder Gibbons, but most of his claim was rejected on the grounds that Cojanu had been dishonest over how he incurred his injury and his loss of earnings.
The 36-year-old claimed that his wife had attacked him in an “altercation” and that he sustained his injury while trying to defend himself.
Cojanu appealed the decision at the High Court and the compensation was increased to £17,500 as a result.
The judge decided that his dishonesty was irrelevant in his civil claim against the NHS.
In his judgement, Justice Ritchie said: “It matters not whether he had suffered the injury opening a tin of beans, in gang warfare or whilst attempting to murder his wife.”
He was deported back to Romania in 2020 after his release.
