Christmas pudding and the patio heater

[Sally090807]

So my son went out on a pub crawl with some friends, they all decided to dress up in Christmas jumpers etc.
Half way through the night they stopped off in a pub beer garden when the guy dressed as a Christmas pudding fell and hit the patio heater which fell and smashed. It was a pyramid shaped one so possibly electric?
The pub landlady came running out with a card reader and said you’re not leaving as I’ve only had that a couple of weeks and then demanded £200 or threatened to call the police if they didn’t pay (no concern if anyone was hurt) so the lads all chipped in and paid.
So should the patio heater of been secured properly and covered by insurance or the lads should of been more careful and were right to pay up.

I thought this was going to be about trying to heat a christmas pudding on a patio heater 😔

Me too 😂
Very disappointed ....

Those who keep saying that the insurance should have covered it- one person has already pointed this out but it bears repeating:
The policy excess would almost certainly be more than £200. So it’s entirely possible that she did have insurance, but would not have been able to claim on it.

As for whether the lads were liable to her- too little information to determine that conclusively. She would have a duty to make sure that the premises were safe from normal use, and with it being a pub, normal use would include drink people bumping into things. That said, patrons do also have to take reasonable care. In their shoes I’d have left, given address details and waited to see if she contacted me. The police would not have been able to do anything, civil matter, and they could have intervened if the boys were being prevented from leaving

Regardless of what should have happened, what did happen is they paid up, so that’s that as far as this goes, chalk one up to the landlady.

I think the landlady was a cheeky cow, and that the boys behaved admirably. Something that can get extremely hot should be well protected from ANY possibility of it getting knocked over. Imagine an elderly lady got up from her chair felt dizzy and stumbled, she reached out to save herself, and knocked over the heater, causing others or herself to be burned. It not being secured enough to stay put if someone fell against it, would be a serious problem with Health & Safety if they inspected the place. I think if I were the boys, I'd go back when completely sober, and check whether the replacement is securely screwed down, if not, I'd take photographs, and report the pub to Health & Safety. I'd also tell them what happened previously.

Yes , the landlady not taking responsibility for securing the heater properly.

It shouldn't have been possible to knock it over.

I think you’d have to be there and know all the facts to give a correct answer

ridiculous to suggest claiming for a £200 Heater there’d be excess and it would go up next year

if they’d done nothing wrong wouldn’t you of just let her call the police
doubt they’d be interested
does sound like they were pissing about