A motorcyclist who was catastrophically injured in a head-on collision with a fire engine answering an emergency call has had his hopes of a big compensation payout boosted.

Leslie Carr, 45, of Stirling Place, Hove, was in intensive care for several days after the collision at a traffic light-controlled junction in the city.

He suffered ten broken bones, along with nerve damage, and three years after the collision he says he has only recently been able to return part time to his role as a legal adviser.

Mr Carr is suing East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service for up to £250,000 damages, claiming negligence on the part of the driver of the fire engine with which his motorbike collided at the junction of Fonthill Road and Goldstone Crescent on August 13 2004.

His case hit the buffers in May this year, when Judge Keith Hollis ruled at the local county court that the fire engine driver was blameless and that Mr Carr himself had accelerated through a red light at the junction at around midnight.

But Mr Carr refused to let the matter rest and new life was breathed into his claim when Appeal Court judges granted him permission to challenge Judge Hollis's decision.

Lord Justice Rimer said Judge Hollis had found Mr Carr "solely to blame for the accident" after ruling that the fire engine had waited for the lights to turn green before moving into the junction.

Judge Hollis, he added, specifically rejected any suggestion that the fire officers on board may have "got together and concocted their account" after the accident.

The appeal judge, sitting with Lord Justice Gage, said Mr Carr's main point was that Judge Hollis did not pay enough regard to the "sequencing" of the traffic lights.

Granting him permission to appeal, he said: "It does seem to me that that last point does raise an element of concern about the judge's judgement".

Judge Hollis's decision implied that a red light must have been against Mr Carr for about ten seconds before he entered the junction, and Lord Justice Rimer said that did have "a resounding ring of improbability about it".

He said Mr Carr had a "real prospect" of successfully arguing on appeal that Judge Hollis's decision was "erroneous, or at least obscure".

No date was set for the full hearing of Mr Carr's appeal. He represented himself in court.