£1m claim over botched vasectomy

Lord Uist will decide on the level of damages

A father-of-four is seeking £1m damages after a vasectomy went wrong, leaving him in pain for the last 12 years.

Daniel Stalker, of Dunbar in East Lothian, underwent the operation in Edinburgh in 1996.

He had to have his testicles removed two years later, but the procedure failed to stop the pain.

The 51-year-old has won his case against Lothian Health Board at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. A judge will now set the level of damages.

Speaking to BBC Scotland, Mr Stalker said: "There's a lot of equipment I need - things for getting into and out of the bath.

I can't get up the stairs to my bath Daniel Stalker

"My daughters have to help me at the moment, and they can't really.

"The room I'm sleeping in is no use to me.

"I can't get up the stairs to my bath and we've had someone looking at putting in a better toilet."

Mr Stalker went for the operation in May 1996 at an Edinburgh family planning clinic after his wife fell pregnant with their fourth child.

He claimed Dr Paul Dewart tried to perform the procedure despite his protests that he was in pain and that the anaesthetic was not working.

The operation had to be abandoned after Mr Stalker doubled over in pain and vomited.

'Lacked credibility'

One of his testicles then turned black and swelled to double the size, he claimed.

On Wednesday, Lord Uist ruled in favour of Mr Stalker.

He said: "On a consideration of the whole evidence on this point, I find that the pursuer suffered neuropathic pain... when Dr Dewart inserted an instrument into an unanaesthetised part of his scrotum in the course of blunt dissection during the attempted vasectomy procedure."

Dr Dewart claimed he could not remember the operation, but the judge said this "lacked credibility".

Lord Uist said: "The procedure here had been abandoned, he [Dr Dewart] had written a misleading letter to the GP and had not completed the operation note: he could not have forgotten what happened in this case.

"His assertion that he could not remember what had happened lacked credibility."