By Tina Towe From Western Daily Press

A Somerset couple who were seriously injured in a machete attack at their holiday home in Tobago six years ago are still fighting for compensation.

Peter and Murium Green, from Wellington, told the BBC they had hired a new lawyer to help them with their claim.

Mr Green said: “If anybody can do it, he can.”

A 25-year-old man who was charged with attempted murder had his case discharged in 2011 due to a lack of evidence, but the case remains active.

The attack happened in August 2009. Mr Green was left blind in one eye and is now partially disabled. Mrs Green was slashed across the face. Mr Green was temporarily placed in a medically-induced coma because of the severity of his injuries. Both needed emergency surgery and have since had to have several facial reconstruction operations.

The couple were told, in 2011, that the maximum compensation they could expect from the Tobago government was about £2,500 each, which they described at the time as “insulting”.

Windsor-based barrister Marc Beaumont is now helping them with their claim.

Mr Beaumont said the Trinidad and Tobago government had “given a fairly strong indication compensation would be paid on an ex gratia basis”, but said despite presenting the couple’s case in a “detailed letter” nine months ago, they had had no response.

He said “for present purposes” the financial amount the couple were claiming should “remain confidential”.

He added that they could only “apply moral pressure” because the Trinidad and Tobago government was “not obliged to do anything”.

Mr Beaumont said: “The facts are extreme. One would have thought as a matter of basic humanity, proper compensation should be paid. These people are very lucky to be alive.”

The Greens, who used to run the Blue Mantle hotel, had been visiting Tobago for about ten years when the attack took place. They said they had received email and telephone threats to murder them should they ever return to the Caribbean island.

Three of their friends in the Island have been murdered.

Mrs Green said that although they are “innocent people” they are “always looking over their shoulders”.

Mr Green, who goes out less than his wife because of his injuries, said: “I am always in constant fear that something will happen to Muriam. They have a number of CCTV cameras helping to guard their home.

Mrs Green said thy have been given “words of sympathy” from the authorities, but without action “that means nothing.”

The High Commission of Trinidad and Tobago in London has been approached for a comment, but it has not responded.

For more on this story go to: http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Caribbean-horror-couple-await-payout/story-27863141-detail/story.html#ixzz3mrLbgxu6