ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

An HR consultant is fighting for £4.2m in damages after she fractured her wrist tripping over a rope outside one of London's best-known gastropubs.

Carmen Mazo, 43, was hurt when she stumbled over a low-lying beer garden marker rope at Notting Hill's The Westbourne.

She says the August 2009 injury destroyed her lucrative career and that her wrist scars have left her fearing being branded a self-harmer.

She is claiming the huge damages payout in a case now set to go before three senior judges.

In a statement, Ms Mazo said the accident and the post-traumatic arthritis which followed had robbed her of everything she had built up during her working life.

She would have expected to be on £700-a-day by now, but would have to go back to the “bottom of the ladder” and retrain in another career, she said.

It had also had a devastating impact on her mental health and social life, she claims.

“I have been left with what I consider to be horrendous scars on my wrist from the surgery, which I am extremely conscious of,” she said.

“The fact that I have been left with major scarring on my wrist, which to an unsympathetic observer might look like I am prone to self-harm, is very distressing for me.”

She continued: “My career has always been my refuge to block away unpleasant circumstances in my personal life, but now I am finding that because of a bartender's irresponsibility I could end up with no career or purpose in life.”

She added: “My mood changes are like a rollercoaster, changing from anger to sadness in seconds.

“I am easily irritated and I lose my temper very easily, then end up breaking into tears when I realise that I was never like that before.

“The accident has totally destroyed my work and social life, changing me such that I do not think that I will ever be my old self again.”

Following the accident, Ms Mazo was off work for months, but returned, only to give up for good three years later.

She sued the pub and, after they admitted liability for the accident, was awarded £156,871 at Central London County Court in 2013.

Judge Heather Baucher rejected her claim to more than £4.2m after finding Ms Mazo's injury was not bad enough to justify her giving up her work.

However, she has now been granted permission to take her multi-million pound claim further after a top judge said it was arguable that Judge Baucher was wrong.

Her barrister Peter Sefton QC argued: “Her wrist was badly injured, she made a remarkable recovery. The issue is what happens next.”

Granting permission to take the loss-of-career point to the Appeal Court, Lord Justice Laws said: “It seems to me that she is entitled to have the matter examined in this court.”

No date was set for the hearing.