Disabled man files compensation claim
It has been revealed that a man in a wheelchair is claiming personal injury damages to the sum of £5,000, because he couldn’t get into a pub’s disabled toilet.
The 55-year-old, from Gamfa Gerrig, in Brynford, Holywell, filed a compensation claim against the landlord of the pub, in a civil case at Caernarfon crown court.
The claimant suffers from multiple sclerosis and has taken the pub, a member of the Punch Taverns group, to court because of its failure to provide toilet and building access, from July 2006 to March 2008.
The man, a qualified engineer, is conducting the case himself and alleges to have visited the pub around 20 times during that period, as a committee member and follower of the Clwyd League football team Brynford United.
The court heard how the club had used the facilities for post-match entertainment until an incident on Saturday, March 22, 2008, when the claimant, who is fitted with a catheter bag as a result of his condition, was left soaked in his own urine, which he blames on the lack of adequate disabled toilets.
He was later asked to leave the pub and he accused the landlords of “manhandling” and trying to “physically eject” him from their premises.
He thus went on to claim that the couple refused to allow him to use the toilet on a second occasion that night, which meant he wet himself a second time.
However, the pub couple paints an entirely different story and claims that the man was “obnoxious” and “drunk” on the night in question and is basing his entire case on one night of humiliation, compared to the two years he visited the pub.
This statement has been supported by a police officer, who also claims the man was being “drunk and aggressive.”
The landlord further argued that he refused to let the man enter the toilet because he had threatened to “sledgehammer” the sink.
The claim
While acknowledging that the incident in March 2008 was the “trigger” for the claim, the wheelchair user said that the landlords had failed to do anything about his grievances as he could not use the toilet, because it was too narrow to accommodate his standard-sized wheelchair.
He said: “I asked [the landlord] if there was anything he could do about it but he said he couldn’t because he was only leasing the pub.” As a result, the claimant had no choice but to use “discreetly”, a urine or catheter bag under a table.
Defence counsel, Mr Green, accused the claimant of only raising the claim because of his experiences in March 2008. He stated that he stayed at the pub until at least 10.30pm, he argued.
Mr Green said: “By the time you left you had a few too many drinks. You were quite merry really? If you were not drunk then you were on the way.”
“The upset and humiliation of the evening was the result of your own actions and not on the part of [the couple]...any injury or hurt pride was self inflicted,” Mr Green added.
The claimant replied: “I had five pints of lager, too much to drive a car but I was not drunk.”
The public liability case continues.Updated on 2/16/2010