Thompsons Solicitors have helped an Aberdeen man who was knocked down by a hit and run driver win, £17,000 in compensation, despite a bizarre claim that he was running backwards across the road at the time.

The man was out with friends in the city centre and crossing a street with a 20mph speed limit when a car came speeding up the road an knocked him down.

The car drove off through red lights, but not before one of his friends took a note of its registration number.

Roz Galloway, of Thompsons Solicitors in King St, Aberdeen, represented the injured man.

She said: “My client suffered cuts to his face, damage to his teeth, a broken thumb and a minor head injury.

“At first glance it seemed a fairly straightforward case, but the driver’s insurance company initially denied responsibility.

“They rather bizarrely claimed my client had been running backwards across the road at the time and the accident was his own fault, which was completely untrue.

“However they finally agreed to an out of court settlement.”