A fine of £850,000 has been handed down by the Claims Management Regulator to a personal injury claims firm that made nearly 6 million unsolicited phone calls to canvass for customers looking to claim for noise-induced hearing loss.

Ofcom received almost 2,000 complaints from subscribers to the Telephone Preference Service about the cold calls to them made by the impressive-sounding and Lancashire-based National Advice Clinic, whose cynical marketing strategy of nuisance calls was described by the regulator as “deliberate and sustained”. The regulator also commented that the company “showed an alarming disregard for the misery their tactics can cause, particularly to elderly and vulnerable people”.