A SALESMAN blinded in one eye in a domestic accident today warned builders to insure themselves after he won a £44,525 compensation claim.

Raymond James, 63, of Kestrel View, Littlemoor, won the payout from an uninsured builder at the Court of Appeal. Now Swindon builder Alan Butler, 34, says he will have to sell his family home to make the payment.

Mr James, who works for Weymouth Caravans, lost the sight of his right eye after a four-foot rafter fell directly into his pupil.

He was paying Mr Butler, a neighbour, £300 to assemble a conservatory at his former home in Wootton Bassett, Swindon, in March 2000 when the accident happened.

Mr James's wife, Pauline, said: "He just came in screaming and holding his eye. The beam came straight down and into his eye."

Mr James was taken to hospital and underwent an operation to sew his eye together with 16 stitches.

He said: "I get depressed now. I can't watch TV or read for more than half an hour. I have to wear a black contact lens because light hurts. I have to put eyedrops in every day because I have no tear duct and I always have to take painkillers.

"This is something I have to live with for the rest of my life, the sight is not going to come back. The worry is now that if I lose my other eye I'll be completely blind. I've already had some problems with it."

Last year Mr James lost a civil case because a judge ruled that Mr Butler could not be held responsible for what happened despite Mr Butler failing to secure the rafter with a screw. But that decision has now been overturned.

Lady Justice Smith, who heard the case with Lord Justice Rix and Lord Justice Sedley, said it was not "reasonable" for Mr Butler to have believed the rafter was securely in place.

She said: "The act of inserting and finger-turning the screw is so simple it falls well within the capability of all but the most inexperienced of handymen."

Mr James said: "I think the judgement was fair. But I should have never lost the case last year. It all came down to the fact he wasn't insured properly. For the sake of £70 a year in insurance we've had to go through this."

Mr Butler, 34, said selling his home of 12 years in Tinkers Field, Wootton Bassett, was the only way he can pay.

He said: "I'm very annoyed. I'm really shocked. I can't appeal, there's nothing I can do. I was just trying to help someone. The message is, don't try to help. It's not worth it.

"I don't know what I can do, I don't know what's going to happen. I will have to sell my house."

He added: "I've got three kids. They're nine, 12 and 14 and they didn't take it very well at all. They're distraught.

"The older two realise we might have to sell the house and we've had to send them to school with notes explaining why they're upset."