The death of a 20-year-old student who fatally hit her head while queuing at the entrance to a popular nightclub after an “inadequate” cordon gave way a second time was “predictable and avoidable,” according to a prosecutor.
“By re-erecting that barrier and allowing the queue to continue, we say that they have allowed the conditions that led to Olivia’s death to continue,” the Durham County Council prosecutor said Monday. Jamie Hill in a lawsuit against one of Britain’s biggest advertising companies, according to various local media.
In February 2018, in Durham, England, young Olivia Burt was queuing to attend a student party at the Missoula Bar when a decorative barrier that used to contain the queue allegedly gave way due to the dense crowd.
When she fell, the young woman would have fatally hit herself on the edge of the metal barrier under the weight of other people who were being pulled down by the movement.
“She sustained an incurable head injury,” the prosecutor said, according to the BBC.
However, the decorative barrier should not have been used in this way because it was not “sufficient” for this type of use, the prosecutor in court estimated, in turn reported The Guardian.
What’s more, the heavy structure would have first fallen just 30 minutes earlier, requiring four people to get it back up: a “major missed opportunity” to move it away from the crowd, the prosecutor reiterated, adding that the structure “already unsuitable” for dealing with crowds was further weakened.
For its part, the Missoula Bar’s parent company, the Stonegate Pub Company, will defend itself over the next few weeks of the trial.