A Durham University student’s tragic death as she queued in a crowd outside a nightclub was ‘foreseeable, predictable and preventable’, a court heard today.
Olivia Burt, 20, suffered a fatal head injury when the ‘press of people’ caused her to fall through a ‘decorative screen.’
Jamie Hill, KC, prosecuting, said her head hit the concrete pavement before the screen’s metal bar and the weight of other customers landed on her head as well, Teesside Crown Court was told.
The first-year undergraduate at Durham University was waiting with friends outside the ‘full’ Missoula bar in the city to attend a student night event called ‘Game Over’ when the tragedy happened.
Mr Hill said the club’s owner, the Stonegate Pub Company, should not have used the ‘unsuitable’ screen for crowd control, failed to ‘properly assess risks’, there wasn’t enough staff on duty and they had ‘ignored warning signs of danger’, including an incident 31 minutes before the tragedy.
Olivia Burt, 20, became trapped under a metal barrier which toppled over as revellers pushed forwards outside the Missoula nightclub in Durham’s Walkergate area just before midnight on February 7
Burt pictured alongside her family who revealed they are ‘heartbroken’
Stonegate – Britain’s biggest pub company – has denied four health and safety charges in connection with the tragedy in Durham in February 2018.
Charges against it have been brought by Durham County Council.
The court heard the club had a capacity of 630 and many of the revellers going to the Wednesday night event were members of university sports teams who regularly attended after matches.
Olivia was a member of the Sailing Club and was also a member of the British sailing team.
In the past different clubs were given different time slots to stagger arrivals. On the night there was ‘little or no competition’ from other venues and jurors were told they would have to consider whether the club had sufficient resources to deal with ‘excessive numbers.’
Mr Hill detailed events leading up to the tragedy.
He said CCTV showed after 11pm queues of students built up as the venue filled ‘towards capacity.’
He said the decorative screen at the centre of the case was made of panels held inside metal structures, but was not fixed to the ground because permission had been refused by the precinct’s landlord.
Clubbers were asked to queue alongside it for at least 12 months and nobody from Stonegate had carried out any risk assessment of this.
Mr Hill said at nightclubs people have often had a drink before queuing. He said: ‘The queues for Missoula on student nights had from time to time been high-spirited and perhaps some pushing and shoving from time to time.’
At 11.17pm a section of the screen fell over and four people lifted it back up.
Two panels had come out of the screen and put to one side. The structure which was already unfit for purpose of crowd management had been further weakened,’ said Mr Hill.
This incident was described as an ‘important missed opportunity.’ Mr Hill said once the screen had fallen ‘students should have been moved away’ or the area cleared.
By re-erecting the barrier and allowing queuing to continue the staff ‘allowed conditions leading to Olivia’s death to persist,’ he said.
Jamie Hill, KC, prosecuting, said her head hit the concrete pavement before the screen’s metal bar and the weight of other customers landed on her head as well
Olivia was a member of the Sailing Club and was also a member of the British sailing team
The prosecutor said there was also insufficient door staff to properly control the crowd that night.
Olivia and her friends arrived after the first barrier collapse and were ‘unaware of the danger.’
After 11.30pm the venue was full but students remained queuing outside.
Mr Hill said security staff were ‘failing to manage the crowds.’
Some students were leaning against the decorative screen at 11.48pm it gave way.
‘Olivia fell through the panels, the screen went over, others fell and tragically Olivia died despite attempts of initially students, door staff and then paramedics, nothing could be done. She had suffered a devastating head injury.’
Mr Hill said given the health and safety failings he outlined the ‘fatal accident was foreseeable, predictable and preventable.’
Stonegate said in writing that the screen was not used for crowd control purposes, the door staff did not follow queue management policy and the fatal accident was ‘not foreseeable.’
It claimed to have done what was ‘reasonably practicable to minimise or eliminate the risk.’
Stonegate is the largest pub company in the UK with over 4,600 pubs and Missoula was one of around 800 sites managed by Stonegate, the court heard.
The case continues.
