A former Tottenham Hotspur apprentice has won a multimillion-pound damages claim against the club after a cardiac arrest suffered nine days into his professional career left him brain-damaged.Radwan Hamed collapsed in August 2006 while playing for Spurs’ youth team against the Belgian side Cercle Brugge, and his brain was deprived of oxygen for 16 minutes until an ambulance arrived with a defibrillator. He suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), abnormal thickening of muscle around the heart which caused Fabrice Muamba’s cardiac arrest in 2012.
An ECG (electrocardiogram) scan 11 months earlier had shown Hamed’s heart to be abnormal but neither the striker – 17 at the time – nor his parents were made aware of the problems and further checks were not sufficiently undertaken.
In court on Monday Mr Justice Hickinbottom ordered that costs, estimated at £5m-£7m, be apportioned between the club and Dr Peter Mills at a 70%-30% ratio. Mills was the Football Association’s regional cardiologist for south-east England in 2005.
The exact figure to be paid out has yet to be decided, although Spurs will not be hit with a fee directly as their 70% portion was incurred by sports physicians previously employed by the club – who have agreed to indemnify Tottenham.
Speaking outside court, Hamed’s father, Raymon, said: “We are relieved more than happy that it is over. If you can imagine, a young man having everything taken away overnight and you didn’t know about it [the cause]. We had to pick up all the pieces. It is the hardest bit. We couldn’t help him because we didn’t know.
“Emotionally it has been draining. It has been draining for a long time but the last two weeks have been difficult. We were never given the chance to protect Rad.” Radwan’s mother, Christabel, said: “We’re happy, we thank God that we are able to secure something for his future. We’re very happy with the outcome. Financially if we had lost the case we would have been homeless, because we didn’t have any financial backing.”
Radwan was scouted by Spurs and regarded as a promising forward, joining their youth academy at 11. He is unable to live independently after the cardiac arrest six minutes into his first match.
All players at professional clubs are required to undergo heart scans at 16. The Professional Footballers’ Association funds a screening programme in conjunction with the FA, costing £300,000 each year, for all academy scholars, with youngsters given an ECG test and an echocardiogram.
Mills recommended a clinical review be undertaken after abnormalities were spotted in Hamed’s scans. Although he undertook an MRI scan – where no indications of HCM were apparent – a clinical review never took place.
Hickinbottom stated that one of the club’s sports physicians made a “serious error of judgment”. He said: “The club owed a duty of care to the claimant as a result of both the doctor-patient and employer-employee relationship … it was their responsibility, as specialist physicians and employers, to ensure that relevant risks were identified and communicated to the claimant and his parents to enable them to make an informed decision as to whether to bear them. In this they singularly failed.”
Commenting on behalf of Radwan’s family, Diane Rostron, medical negligence expert at Linder Myers Solicitors, said: “On the third day of the trial Dr Mills finally conceded that he owed Rad a duty of care and that he failed in that duty. The club maintained their denials. The judge has now decided that the club failed in their duties to Rad, both as an employer and with the doctor-patient relationship that he had with their doctors. The club failed Rad.”
During the case Hickinbottom made reference to previous players who have died from cardiac complications, including the Cameroon and Manchester City midfielder Marc-Vivien Foé, the Everton youngster John Marshall and the Leeds teenager Daniel Yorath.
A Tottenham spokesman said: “The club wholeheartedly regrets that a former employee, as adjudged, was remiss in their duties to Radwan. This judgment will hopefully now secure the best possible treatment and care for him. The club has been supportive of Radwan and his family over the past 10 years and we wish them well for the future.”
By James Riach, Guardian
