Ex-WPC who fell off police horse sues for £1m
A FORMER mounted police officer is suing for £1million after she fell off her horse at a football match.
Alison Scott, 50, had to give up her job after seriously damaging her foot and ankle when she became trapped under her mount, Tobermory.
The former Strathclyde Police constable, from Symington, Ayrshire, claims the horse had a history of behavioural issues, was unpredictable, aggressive and had a tendency to fall.
When Mrs Scott was injured it was understood to have been the sixth time that Tobermory had stumbled and fallen.
She has now raised an action against the former Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Phil Gormley, as a result of the incident.
It occurred at the CIS Cup Final at Glasgow’s Hampden Park on March 17, 2013, when St Mirren beat Hearts 3-2. The claim is being contested. The Court of Session heard Mrs Scott’s horse kicked out at another police horse, striking its hind leg and drawing blood.
She said she later tried to move Tobermory out of the line of horses on duty to prevent more incidents but claims that, as she did so, the horse ‘suddenly and without warning lost his footing and fell over’.
Tobermory was sent to a horse welfare centre in Deeside but fell
‘Had something wrong with it’
again and was put down in 2015. Mrs Scott said she was medically retired from the police in 2014.
She said she has been unable to return to riding and that before the fall she had two horses she rode competitively at showjumping events.
Mr Gormley said she was a trained and experienced police rider and the force had fulfilled all its common law duties to her.
A full hearing is due to begin next week, but in a legal debate yesterday Graham Primrose, QC, for the Chief Constable, successfully raised objections to proposed adjustments in pleadings.
He said that, after a post-mortem examination, Mrs Scott was now suggesting ‘that the horse had something constitutionally wrong with it, therefore it ought to have been examined by a vet and should have been taken out of service a long time before the accident’. Mr Primrose argued this was a new case that was being advanced at too late a stage.
He said: ‘The basic complaint now is not the horse was clumsy but that it had something wrong with it. This is the same accident but not the same danger.’
Geoff Clarke, QC, for Mrs Scott, said he had recently consulted with her, adding: ‘What I took from the pursuer, a very experienced horsewoman, was that the behavioural issues she could deal with. What she could not deal with were the sudden falls.’