A lawyer injured trying to scale the gates of his Hampstead home has lost a £100,000 compensation claim after a judge ruled the accident was his fault.
When Carlos Reguero Perez, 49, found himself locked out by security gates at his £1 million apartment, he decided to climb over as he was “desperate” to eat his evening meal.
But he fell backwards from the top of the six-foot-high spiked gates, suffering spinal fractures and a “moderate” brain injury.
Mr Perez sued estate agents Savills (UK) Ltd, claiming the company should have passed on a key fob for the gates. However, Judge Heather Baucher, sitting at Central London county court, cleared Savills of all blame, saying Mr Perez’s “folly” in climbing the gates was “reckless in the extreme”. She added: “The accident was caused solely by his own actions.”
The court had heard Mr Perez returned home at 10.30pm on February 4, 2015. He argued he had been forced to climb the gates by Savills’ alleged failure, but the estate agent insisted it had no idea the gates were to become operational that day. It said it had only recently received a security fob for the “vehicular” section of the gates.
Mr Perez said he has been left with blurred vision and acute sensitivity to light.
He may have to pay the legal costs of Savills following the judge’s ruling.
