A WOMAN has been awarded £26,000 damages for a back injury sustained while doing evangelical work during the Cork Jazz Festival. Ms Michele Gilmore (27), of Castle Manor, Newcastle, Co Wicklow, said she slipped on a wet, polished floor in the Cork Christian Centre. She sued the Irish Assemblies of God Ltd.
Ms Gilmore told Judge James Carroll in the Circuit Civil Court yesterday that in October 1993 she had gone to Cork to do evangelical work at the jazz festival.
Her counsel, Mr Colm P. Condon, said Ms Gilmore, a Charismatic Christian, had been accommodated at the Cork Christian Centre in MacCurtain Street. Liability was admitted.
Ms Gilmore said after having cooked dinner for a group of evangelists she had fallen heavily on her "bum and elbow" and although having had a suspected fractured back, had been discharged after treatment from the Victoria Hospital.
Ms Gilmore told Mr Michael O'Donoghue, for the Irish Assemblies of God Ltd, she had had a baby since the accident and suffered more than normal at the birth. While she was a lot better, she still had lower back pain.
Judge Carroll said Ms Gilmore was subject to periodic exacerbations which gave rise to periods of quite acute pain.