Lillystone v Bradgate: Why a Footballer Who Climbed a Locked Gate Got Nothing – and What It Means for Your Public Place Injury Claim
By David Healey, Senior Solicitor · Accidents in Public Places · May 2026
Whether you can claim depends on whether the risk was obvious to you, not on whether the occupier could have done more. In Lillystone v Bradgate [2025] EWHC 3341 (KB), the High Court confirmed an occupier owes no duty for obvious or self-inflicted risks — even where wider systems were inadequate.
Mrs Justice Hill dismissed Mr Lillystone’s appeal on 19 December 2025. Mr Lillystone had climbed a locked school gate to retrieve a football and cut his hand on a metal burr — section 2(5) of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 applied.
Claims survive this filter where the danger was concealed, where the claimant had no realistic choice, or where the occupier created the hazard. A burr the occupier did not know about, on top of a gate the claimant chose to climb, was none of these.
Honest early advice matters more than enthusiasm. A claim that fails the duty test fails before breach is even considered — six years of litigation cannot rescue it.
At around 9pm on 16 April 2019, a thirty-seven-year-old man kicked a football out of play during an informal evening game at a Leicestershire school. The ball cleared a 4.5-metre pitch fence, then a second 2.1-metre perimeter fence. The gate was locked. He climbed it. As he dropped down the other side, his hand caught a small jagged piece of metal at the top of one of the gate’s struts. He cut his hand.
Six years later, on 19 December 2025, the High Court of England and Wales handed down judgment on his appeal. The case is Lillystone v Bradgate Education Partnership [2025] EWHC 3341 (KB). It is a clear recent application of the doctrine that decides more public-place injury claims than any other: the “obvious risk” principle.
If you have been injured doing something a defendant or insurer will call “a choice” — climbing, jumping, exploring, ignoring a sign, retrieving something — this judgment tells you where your claim stands.
How the courts decide if it was really my own fault
The first question a court asks in a public-place injury claim is not “did the occupier do enough?” It is: “where did the danger come from?” If the danger arose from the state of the premises or from something done or omitted on them, the occupier may owe a duty. If the danger arose from a choice the claimant made — climbing, jumping, ignoring an obvious risk — the occupier owes no duty at all.
This is the threshold test. It comes from Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council [2004] 1 AC 46, where the House of Lords considered a teenager who had dived into a flooded quarry and suffered catastrophic injury. The lake was not dangerous in itself. The danger arose from the swimmer’s decision to dive. No duty was owed under either the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 or the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984.
Twenty-one years later, Mrs Justice Hill applied the same principle to a footballer who climbed a locked gate. The conclusion was the same. The danger arose not from the gate, the burr, or the school’s ball-retrieval system. It arose from the act of climbing.
As Lord Hoffmann put it in Tomlinson: a duty to protect a person against an obvious or self-inflicted risk exists only where there is “no genuine and informed choice.” An adult who chooses to climb a locked gate has made such a choice. So did the swimmer in Tomlinson. So does a customer who jumps a queue barrier in a shop.
What actually happened in Lillystone v Bradgate
The facts are short. The litigation was not.
Adam Lillystone, then aged 37, was playing an informal game of football on a FIFA-approved 3G pitch at Wreake Valley Academy in Syston, Leicestershire on the evening of 16 April 2019. He kicked the ball out of play, over a 4.5-metre pitch fence and then over a 2.1-to-2.5-metre perimeter fence into the school’s adjacent playing fields. The gate in the perimeter fence was locked. He climbed it. As he dropped down the other side, his hand caught a metal burr — a small jagged ridge left at the top of one of the gate’s struts — and was cut. The trial judge later described the Appellant as an entirely honest and straightforward witness and accepted that the burr was not visible on reasonable inspection.
The trial took place at Leicester County Court before HHJ Murdoch on 17 and 18 January 2024. Judgment was handed down on 1 March 2024. The trial judge held that Mr Lillystone was a lawful visitor — not a trespasser — but that section 2(5) of the 1957 Act applied: the Appellant had willingly accepted the obvious risks of climbing the gate. The 1984 Act was considered in the alternative and the trial judge held no duty would have arisen under it either. The trial judge also indicated, in obiter dicta, that the school’s ball-retrieval system was not adequate.
The appeal was heard by Mrs Justice Hill DBE on 8 December 2025 at the Birmingham Civil and Family Justice Centre. Judgment was handed down remotely at 2pm on 19 December 2025. Mr Lillystone advanced five grounds of appeal. The school advanced three reasons in its Respondent’s Notice. Hill J dismissed the appeal in full, upheld the trial judge’s finding under section 2(5), substituted a finding that Mr Lillystone was a trespasser when climbing the gate (no duty arose under the 1984 Act either, because the school did not know of the burr and the climbing risk was obvious), and substituted a finding that the school’s ball-retrieval measures were in fact adequate.
The Lillystone claim ran for six years across three legal teams. The duty question was always going to decide it. If you have been injured in a public place doing something the defendant will call “a choice,” the first conversation with a solicitor should never start with how much you might recover — it should start with whether the law required the occupier to protect you from this kind of risk at all. Everything else flows from that. Get that question wrong at the outset and you face six years of stress and uncertainty for a claim that was never going to succeed.
I knew the risk — does that always kill my claim?
Not every public-place claim dies at the duty stage. The case law recognises four situations where the obvious-risk doctrine does not apply, or where its application is qualified. If your situation falls into one of these, the duty test does not finish the conversation.
A hazard the visitor could not have seen, anticipated, or assessed. Lord Atkin’s analysis in Hillen v ICI (Alkali) Ltd [1936] AC 65 and Scrutton LJ’s earlier remark in The Calgarth [1927] P 93 set the framework: a trap is one where the danger is hidden from view and the premises look safe when they are not. A wet floor in a supermarket aisle with no warning sign is a trap. A metal burr the occupier did not know about, on top of a gate the visitor chose to climb, is not.
Where the claimant was compelled to take the risk by their job, by an emergency, or by a state of dependence. Lord Hoffmann gave the examples in Tomlinson: employees whose work requires them to take a risk; prisoners whose despair leads to self-harm. Bunker v Charles Brand & Son Ltd [1969] 2 QB 480 is the workhorse authority — an employee whose work required him to walk across dangerous tunnelling equipment was held not to have accepted the risk of injury, even though he knew of the dangers.
Children, persons under disability, or others who cannot make a reasoned assessment. British Railways Board v Herrington [1972] AC 877 remains the lead case for child trespassers. An eight-year-old who climbs a fence to retrieve a kite is not in the same legal position as a 37-year-old who climbs a gate to retrieve a football.
The threshold test looks at whether the risk arose from the state of the premises or from things done or omitted on them. Where an occupier has positively created a hazard, or knew of a danger and did nothing, the analysis shifts. In Harvey v Plymouth City Council [2010] EWCA Civ 860 the Court of Appeal noted the limit: a general permission to use premises for recreation does not extend to behaviour grossly outside what the occupier would have allowed.
What to ask a solicitor before signing the No Win No Fee
If a solicitor signs you up before they have answered the duty question honestly, they are not protecting you — they are protecting their pipeline. Five questions worth asking out loud at the first meeting:
Where did your accident happen?
The duty test is the first filter for any public-place claim. The second is the type of premises — different occupiers face different duties, and different evidence makes the difference.
Three public-place cases other solicitors turned down
“This claim won’t win” is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Three of our public-place claims where another firm had already said no first.
Mrs Manecki was injured after she slipped whilst walking into a well-known high-street store on a wet day. Solicitors took her case on but when the store refused to accept they were to blame, her solicitors dropped her. We were contacted by her to review the papers and, after highlighting a number of strengths, agreed to take her case on. We contacted the store, made a variety of points and convinced them to accept the blame, which meant Mrs Manecki was compensated.
“I was informed at every stage by a very competent David Healey and am absolutely delighted with the result.”
Mr Coley was injured after he slipped in a wet toilet in a well-known bar chain. He went into the toilets and, unknown to him, the floor was soaking wet. Numerous solicitors refused to take his case on, as they believed it was too difficult and the bar was bound to have a system of inspection for the toilets. We spoke to him, saw the strengths in his case and agreed to act on his behalf. We contacted the bar and convinced them to accept blame for the accident, which resulted in Mr Coley being compensated.
Ms Zhao was injured after she trod on a security pin which had been dropped by a member of staff at a well-known department store. We took her case on after other solicitors didn’t want to know and successfully settled it.
“It was very good dealing with David (Healey), he was very approachable.”
Our fees — published upfront
If you have been injured in a public place and you are not sure whether your situation passes the duty test, the first conversation should answer that — before anything else. Carter & Carter Solicitors handles accidents in public places, accidents at work, allergic reactions, and needlestick injuries across England and Wales on a No Win No Fee basis.
Call 0800 652 0586 — senior solicitor advice from the first call.
David Healey is a Senior Solicitor at Carter & Carter Solicitors in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire. Qualified in 2005, he has spent over 21 years helping people injured in public places and at work. Accident in public places claims are one of the firm’s four specialist practice areas. Carter & Carter is one of very few firms in England and Wales to publish its fee structure upfront and to handle every claim personally at senior solicitor level from start to finish. More about our solicitors →