Homeowners with a private swimming pool do not have the ultimate responsibility to prohibit adults from diving into it, according to a landmark High Court ruling in which a young woman lost her claim for £6m damages.
Kylie Grimes, a healthy, athletic horsewoman was just 18 when she was left paralysed from the chest down when she dived into the pool in Farnham, Surrey, in August 2006.
The pool owner David Hawkins and his wife were away on the
night of the accident. Their daughter Katie had asked her father to let her have a few friends over but a group of about 20 came back from the pub.
Ms Grimes, of Stephendale Road, broke a vertebra below the base of her neck jumping into the pool.
She claimed her injury was caused by Mr Hawkins’s negligence or breach of his duties under the Occupiers’ Liability Act but Mrs Justice Thirlwall ruled against her, describing the pool as “not unsafe for diving”.
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