A STOURBRIDGE mum whose son suffered catastrophic injuries at birth has launched a legal battle for massive compensation for her son.

Victoria Johnson is demanding unlimited damages from the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust after Alfie's birth in November 2007.

He suffered catastrophic brain damage during his birth at the Russell Hall Hospital, Dudley, when he was starved of oxygen for up to 25 minutes immediately before his delivery, according to a High Court writ.

If midwives handling his birth had called in obstetricians earlier, Alfie would have been born unharmed, the writ says. But he suffered the most profound forms of acute brain injury.

Mrs Johnson, of Stourbridge, then 33, was admitted to hospital on November 11 2007 for midwifery led delivery.

She was cared for by a student midwife, with midwives "popping in and out", and was sometimes left alone during her labour, the writ claims.

Alfie was delivered by the student midwife at 1451 hours, after a long second stage labour, and notes record he was in a poor and floppy condition. Mrs Johnson says some medical notes were made retrospectively because of the "manifest inadequacy and inaccuracy of the contemporaneous notes".

He was treated on a resuscitaire and transferred to a neonatal unit, suffering from fits and he was given anticonvulsant drugs. By the time he was four months old, he was having frequent seizures three to four times a day, of up to 15 at a time.

Mrs Johnson brands the trust negligent, and says midwives failed to carry out enough observations, failed to ensure competent practice and to supervise the student midwife, and failed to detect and correct her failings and omissions.

Mrs Johnson's husband Paul and Alfie's grandmother were present in the delivery room and confirm Mrs Johnson was left unattended and unmonitored for excessive periods, the writ says.

The writ claims the trust produced dubious retrospective records, and records which purport to be contemporaneous but are not, and say midwives were driven to create a false and inaccurate reconstruction of monitoring of events in labour.

Alfie was probably asphyxiated by the umbilical cord becoming obstructed and this was not picked up by midwives because of their negligent monitoring, it is claimed.

The writ was issued by Olivia Scates of Manchester based JMW Solicitors.