A prize-winning novelist has won a settlement of more than £100,000 after she claimed to have become so intoxicated by fumes from a nearby shoe factory that she was reduced to writing thrillers.

Joan Brady, who beat Andrew Motion and Carol Anne Duffy to win the Whitbread Prize in 1993 with her book The Theory of War, has received £115,000 in an out-of-court settlement after she suffered numbness in her hands and legs allegedly caused by solvents used by Conker, a cobbler based next to her home in Totnes, Devon.

She told The Times that the fumes were so bad that she was unable to concentrate on writing her highbrow novel, Cool Wind from the Future, and instead wrote a brutal crime story, Bleedout, which she found easier. The violent plot of the book also allowed her to vent her frustrations on the factory and South Hams District Council, which failed initially to detect the smells. According to Nielsen Book-scan, Bleedout has sold a respectable 10,000 copies.

Ms Brady, who now lives in Oxford, named the fictional prison in her thriller South Hams State Prison after the council, and dedicated the book to it. Her author’s note reads: “If we get right to the heart of things, the South Hams District Council is responsible for the existence of this book. Their relentless pursuit of me through the courts took on an almost messianic quality and focused my attention as never before on issues of justice and injustice.”

The book also features a villainous character, Mr Poole, whose name is an oblique reference to one of the factory owners. “He runs a juvenile detention centre that beats the children,” the author said.

She said that she fled to Oxford because she feared that the council bore a grudge against her and could make life difficult for her if she stayed. “The thing that was insane is that the environmental health guy stood with me smelling this stuff and saying he couldn’t smell it,” she said. “It was a bizarre situation.”

The council’s environmental health department said first that it was unable to test for the chemicals. When it did conduct a test, the equipment registered a reading so high it was off the scale. The council paid her £4,000 later, after an investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman found it guilty of maladministration.

Ms Brady, who was the first woman to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award, said that the numbness in her legs was so severe that she could stick a needle in her shin and not feel it. “I still have a slight impairment in the left hand. It’s like when you’ve been to the dentist and the anaesthetic is beginning to wear off.”

Doctors from the medical toxicology unit of Guy’s Hospital in London confirmed that she had neuropathy, or nerve damage, that was likely to have been caused by chemicals.

Conker disputes that any damage was caused by its solvents, but did not pursue the case in the courts because its insurers chose to settle.

Prem Ash, a former co-owner of the factory, said that her company used the safest glues on the market. “We’re disappointed that the insurers chose to settle,” she said.

“We were quite prepared to go to court so that everybody could realise we’d done nothing wrong. My two children worked at the factory for six years each. There’s no way we would have subjected ourselves, let alone our children, to toxic fumes.”

Ms Brady added: “It was a divisive issue. It had divided the town – half of them agreed with me, and half of them agreed with Conker.”

She does not know how she will spend her award, which includes £30,000 in legal costs, but said that she felt she deserved a good holiday.

Dumbing down

Opening paragraph of The Theory of War

How stupid the young are. When I was 21 I enrolled in philosophy at Columbia University. I wanted to find truth. I hired helpers to wheel me to it. My professors said, “Truth exists. It’s real and absolute. But the only place it has any meaning is in questions like ‘Is it going to rain tomorrow?’ Wait until tomorrow and see. Then – hey, presto – you’ve got the truth.” Well, what the hell good is that to me? I live down here, deep down in this wheelchair. I need more.

Opening paragraph of Bleedout

Even after Hugh Freyl lost his sight he was invincible. But late one night, in the library of the elite law firm that bears his name, he was beaten to death.

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