Woman who fell down club stairs was drunk and obese, judge says
A JAZZ FAN who fell down the stairs at Ronnie Scott’s night club has been told she cannot sue for damages by a judge who described her as inebriated and obese.
Eren Hussein, 53, blamed dim lighting at the club in Soho, central London, after breaking her wrist and elbow after a party in 2012. She had been seeking thousands of pounds in damages, but a judge said her fall was not the club’s fault.
Judge Heather Baucher, QC, said Mrs Hussein was intoxicated, obese, wearing shoes with high platform heels, and not taking care by holding the bannister as she descended. “In her inebriated, obese state on three-inch platforms, that would be an obvious, simple step for anyone presented with what they saw as a hazard,” she said.
Giving evidence at Central London County Court, the company director, from Lower Clapton, in east London, said she had been at a birthday party with her pregnant daughter-in-law when the accident happened in March 2012. After missing a step outside an upstairs lounge, she fell, tumbling down one flight, round a corner and down another, she said.
“It was dark, it was dim and I didn’t see my step as I was going down,” she told the judge. I tumbled over and over and over and I injured myself very badly. I recall landing on my neck and the back of my head as well.”
Mrs Hussein, who has since shed five stones (32kg), told the court that she was walking down the left side of the stairs, whereas the bannister was on the right. But Judge Baucher said, given her size, that should not have prevented her using the rail as she walked down the 40in-wide stairway. “Mrs Hussein, at 115kg, must have taken up much of the width of the stairway,” said the judge, “but for some inexplicable reason, she did not use the handrail.”
Earlier, Mrs Hussein said she had drunk no more than a glass and a half of champagne and a glass of red wine, and was not tipsy. But the club’s barrister Catherine Foster pointed out medical records from her arrival at hospital, in which she was described as “obviously drunk” and “intoxicated”.
In her ruling, Judge Baucher found Mrs Hussein was under the influence, although she said she may have been affected by painkillers.
There was nothing wrong with the lighting, continued Judge Baucher who visited the scene of the accident during the trial. Hundreds of people use the stairs every week and yet there had only been one other report of a person falling down, she said.
Mrs Hussein had fallen because she had missed her step, something for which Ronnie Scott’s management could not be blamed.