A FORMER beauty queen who was badly injured in a road accident was awarded £550,000 agreed damages in the High Court in Belfast yesterday.
Mrs Anne Marie Laverty (27), of Ashley Court, Warrenpoint, Co Down, suffered multiple leg fractures in the head on crash on the Newry Warrenpoint dual carriageway in May 1993.
Two years previously she won a local heat of the "Mary of Dungloe" contest.
But the crash has left her with severe mobility problems and she also had to have extensive plastic surgery.
Her husband Barry, to whom she was engaged at the time, was also injured after another car crossed the central reservation. His claim has still to be heard.
Mrs Laverty's action was against the other driver, Mr Stephen Meade, from Sleepy Valley, Rathfriland, Co Down, and Northern Ireland Electricity, owners of the car.
Mr Meade's girlfriend, Miss Kathleen Tumilty, from Bankside, Newry, died instantly in the crash.