A MERSEYSIDE hospital agreed a “substantial level” of compensation to a nine-year-old boy after complications at birth left him disabled.

The undisclosed sum was granted yesterday by Manchester District Registry to Stephen Loraine.

The nine-year-old, from Rock Ferry, Wirral, needs 24-hour care after doctors at Arrowe Park failed to spot a dangerous fibroid in his mother Pauline’s womb during a scan in 2000.

Three days later she suffered a massive bleed at home and was rushed into hospital.

Stephen was starved of oxygen for more than 45 minutes and he was subsequently diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and impaired sight.

He relies on 24-hour care from his parents and cannot talk.

Had doctors reviewed Pauline’s notes from her previous four pregnancies, they would have realised she had a fibroid and had endured a previous breech delivery. She would have been admitted to hospital in the days leading up to birth, where Stephen could have been delivered with emergency care.

Stephen lives at home with his mother Pauline, father Mark, a marine fitter for Mersey Ferries, and his four brothers and sisters aged between 11 and 20.

He attends Lyndale School in Eastham which provides special care to children with severe learning difficulties and his mother, a former waitress, is his main carer.