A SOCIAL worker, badly injured while trying to restrain a violent child in a North-East care home, has fought off a bid to strip him of his £19,000 damages.

Dominic Harvey, 39, of Rickleton, Washington, on Wearside, was working at Kyloe House - a secure unit for disturbed children at Stannington, Northumberland - at the time of the June 1999 incident in which he suffered a twisted knee.

His employer at the time - Northumberland County Council - was found responsible for his injury by a Newcastle County Court judge last October because of its failure to adequately train him.

Yesterday, the council's challenge on the ruling was dismissed by the Appeal Court, sitting in London, and the damages award upheld.

The judges heard that Mr Harvey and a female colleague were trying to calm down a particularly aggressive child at the home when he was set upon by the child, suffering a badly twisted knee in the fracas.

Dismissing the local authority's appeal, Lord Justice Scott Baker said a Crisis and Aggression Limitation and Management training scheme (Calm) had been available at the time, but Mr Harvey had not been sent on it.

"They had a common law obligation to ensure Mr Harvey's place of work was safe," said the judge