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A mother-of-two who is suing for £300,000 over a harrowing lift accident at Tower Bridge relived her trauma when she got trapped in another elevator on her way to court.

Australian tourist Bronwyn Cowan, 63, and her husband Graham, 64, were on the first day of their dream holiday when the lift they were in plunged around 10 feet and crashed.

They were left both with leg fractures from the incident, and Mrs Cowan continues to be affected by psychological trauma, Central London County Court heard.

Christopher Edwards, representing the couple, said she fractured both ankles and a big toe in the fall, and is still haunted by memories of lying stricken on the floor of the Tower Bridge lift.

He said memories of the incident came flooding back as they made their way to court, and she suffered a panic attack when the couple became trapped in a lift at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Asking for extra time before legal proceedings began, Mr Edwards explained Mrs Cowan needed a few minutes to compose herself: “My client was briefly stuck in the lift and suffered a very unpleasant reaction.”

“That’s dreadful,” said Judge Peter Wulwik who allowed the couple to use a private judicial staircase to exit the building at the end of the hearing.

The couple were among ten passengers in the lift which failed in May 2009 as it was rising from Tower Bridge’s ground floor.

Mr Edwards said the accident “utterly ruined” their holiday on the first day, forcing them to cancel plans for a walking tour of Italy after leaving London.

Mrs Cowan says she was a naturally calm person but now has a fear of using lifts and is “hyper-vigilant of mechanical sounds”.

However she and her husband could only get to the court hearing by lift or an exhausting climb up several flights of stairs.

The couple, from Sydney, are suing the City of London Corporation, which owns Tower Bridge, and two companies involved in installing and maintaining the lift.

Liability for the accident was admitted in April last year, but defence lawyers are disputing the £300,000 value put on the couple’s claim.

“It is clear that she is still psychologically affected by this horrible accident - as we saw from her brief experience of becoming stuck in this lift”, said Mr Edwards.

The court heard she “effectively retired” from work after trying to balance her job with stress from the accident, and is “still conscious of the accident when she travelled in lifts”.

She had also suffered “an episode of panic in the lift at work”, said Mr Edwards.

He said she suffers from mobility problems which have affected her hobbies of gardening and bush-walking.

Mr Cowan, 64, a rail engineer, fractured his spine and left ankle in the impact, and ended up taking redundancy in 2012.

He had a “specific phobia of lifts” for around five months after the accident, the court heard, and was “worried every time” he got into an elevator. However his symptoms have now subsided.

City of London Corporation declined to comment.

The hearing was continuing today.