PARALYSED Lee Kench has today spoken of his hope for the future after winning a record £2 million in damages.

Mr Kench, 37, of Moorfield Road, Portland, was paralysed from the waist down after he was knocked off his motorbike as he drove to work almost three years ago.

Mr Kench's spinal cord was severed in the accident in July 1999. He spent eight months in hospital.

The former part-time fireman and engineer has now been awarded a £2 million settlement, which will pay for legal aid costs, welfare benefits and future medical care.

Mr Kench, who lives with his wife Janet and their two daughters Bethany, 10, and Rosie, 8, said: "I am very pleased with the settlement but I don't think it has sunk in yet. I am just glad it is over now.

"The money will help with the costs of living and will make us more secure financially but I would trade it all tomorrow to be able to go back to the way it was before."

Mr Kench and his wife met lawyers to negotiate the pay-out after he decided he did not want to fight for damages in court.

Mr Kench said: "If we had gone to court we may or may not have got a sympathetic judge so the case could have gone either way.

"We were both very nervous about having to go to court so by negotiating at home it was amicable and not so stressful."

Mr Kench's solicitor Julian Chamberlayne said the pay-out was the 'highest sum of damages recovered by a paraplegic after an accident'.

He said: "Effectively the motorist's insurer has rightly paid for the full life-time effects of Mr Kench's disability, without leaving the cost to the tax payer."

He added a major factor in the record award was the increasing acceptance by experts that, with modern medical advances, paraplegics commonly live into their 70s. Mr Kench added the accident has not only affected him but his family and friends but he believes in being positive.

He said: "There is no point in being angry as the accident could have happened to anybody."

Mrs Kench, 34, said: "Sometimes I do get angry and cross about what happened but it was an accident and there is no point in dwelling on it too much."

"I would just like to say thank you to all our family and friends for all the help and support.

Mr Kench said he geared his life around the things he could do and not what he could not and added: "I am a positive person and we can now all look to the future."

He has set up a picture framing business and works from a workshop studio in his basement.