Suing for £200k, the opera stage manager traumatised by curtain
A FORMER Royal Opera House stage manager is seeking £200,000 of compensation after a halfton curtain almost crushed him, triggering a nervous breakdown.
Gary Crofts, 68, claims he has been plagued by depression and anxiety since the section of stage curtain fell in his ‘immediate vicinity’ in November 2016 as he worked on a production of the ballet Anastasia.
In Central London County Court, his lawyers said Mr Croft had been injured in a similar incident two years earlier, when part of an ‘extremely heavy section of gate’ toppled onto his legs, causing ‘significant physical and psychiatric injury’.
They said the falling curtain had an especially traumatic impact, and made his mental symptoms even worse.
Mr Crofts’ injuries kept him off work until June 2015.
Barrister David Cunnington said: ‘Mr Crofts was continuing to suffer with ongoing psychological injuries from his first accident at the date of the second accident.
‘As a result of the second accident, he suffered a disabling deterioration of his prior psychological condition.’ Mr Crofts, a veteran team leader at the central London venue, is now suing the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation. It denies liability for both accidents.
Mr Crofts claims the first accident lacerated part of his achilles and caused acute soft tissue damage. On top of that, he allegedly suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and social withdrawal.
The second accident only intensified those symptoms, he says, leading to ‘disabling’ anxiety which made work impossible. He left the Royal Opera House in August 2018.
The case, set for a trial in April next year, involves a ‘significant care claim’, Mr Cunnington told District Judge Barry Lightman.