Welsh couple's financial battle goes on, years after NZ crash

A Welsh couple say they are battling for compensation after a dream trip to New Zealand ruined their lives, the South Wales Echo newspaper reports.

Tony and Jenny Legge said they were left permanently crippled after their motor home was hit by a drunk driver who was speeding in the wrong lane at more than 132km/h.

But although the police found the truck driver's blood contained three-and-a-half times the legal limit of alcohol as well as traces of marijuana, they have only been offered a few thousand dollars in compensation.

The couple said they took issue with New Zealand's accident compensation system because the ACC was only obliged to offer them less than $30,000.

"It is like the iron age," said Mr Legge, 58, a former manager at the University Hospital of Wales who has not been able to return to work since the accident in July 2002.

He said that he and his wife, a 60-year-old former information technology teacher, were now stuck in a battle for compensation for a crash they were lucky to survive.

He believed that in terms of lost earnings, the crash, on the first day of their visit to the North Island, had cost him around £400,000 ($1,033,000).

"And that doesn't include the fact that I can't maintain my own house," he said.

Mr Legge said he used to be very active but now could not even go to the shop near their home in Lon-y-mynydd, Rhiwbina, without crutches.

The couple spent two and a half months in Whangarei Hospital and a further five weeks at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff after their flights home were paid for by their travel insurance.

- NZPA