New Forest: Olivia Burt, 20, was crushed by a decorative screen

Olivia Burt, a 20-year-old life sciences first year student at Durham University, suffered severe head injuries outside Missoula bar in the city in February 2018.

The venue was full of student sports teams on a Wednesday night and a crowd had gathered outside, waiting to get in.

The UK’s biggest pub owners, Stonegate, is on trial at Teesside Crown Court charged with a single count of breaching health and safety legislation.

It was cleared of three other charges following a ruling by the judge.

The remaining charge relates to the same heavy screen falling earlier in the evening but being lifted back into place.

Durham University student Olivia Burt died in an accident outside a nightclub in the city in 2018 (Image: Martini archive)

Jamie Hill KC, summarising the prosecution case brought by Durham County Council, said: "It is perhaps difficult to understand how it is that a 20-year-old woman could die in such a senseless and avoidable way.

"All she was doing was standing with her friends, waiting to get into a club which had targeted the student population as a way of filling their venue on Wednesday nights."

Of Ms Burt, who was from Milford on Sea, he said: "She was an innocent woman doing nothing wrong and who deserved to be kept safe.

"She deserved to be protected by a large organisation that had a lot of written policies.

"It had risk assessments covering just about everything, policies that were supposed to cover all reasonably foreseeable eventualities.

"But the reality is that as soon as the venue, which had become the first choice venue for students on a Wednesday night, was confronted with more customers than they could accommodate within their own set limits, all of the planning and all the risk assessments came to nought."

Flowers were left at the spot where Olivia Burt, from Milford on Sea, died in an accident (Image: Stuart Boulton)

Mr Hill said staff could have moved the crowd away and told them there would be a delay in getting in, but instead "they just queued them up and let the numbers swell".

Once the screen first fell at 11.17pm "it was entirely foreseeable it could go again”, which it did at around 11.48pm, killing Ms Burt.

Prashant Popat KC, defending Stonegate, described the case as a "tragedy", adding: “It is absolutely extraordinary that a young life could be lost whilst doing something so ordinary.

"The fact that a tragedy occurred does not mean the defendant must have committed a crime."

Mr Popat said Stonegate could not have reasonably done more and had hired Phoenix Security, "one of the best in the business", to manage customers waiting to get in.

Olivia's parents, Nigel and Paula (Image: PA)

Judge Howard Crowson gave jurors a route to a verdict. He said they must be sure the decorative screen was being used as a barrier, that it was not designed to be used that way, that this caused a real risk and that the risk arose from Stonegate’s activity.

It should also consider if it was more likely than not that Stonegate took all "reasonably practical" steps to prevent it.

The jury has now retired to consider its verdict.