A drunken man crippled for life when he fell off a bar stool admitted in court yesterday that he got drunk fairly regularly.
Mr William Joy (37), a former butcher and a bachelor, agreed in the High Court in Belfast that visiting pubs was a big part of his social activity at weekends.
Mr Joy, of Princess Avenue, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, was being cross-examined by a lawyer for a publican, Mr Michael Newell, whom he is suing for damages.
He fractured his neck when he fell off a stool in the Copper Room, Cookstown, in 1989, and is now confined to a wheelchair.
The court has already heard that he had drunk 13 vodkas and four pints of beer elsewhere before he entered the Copper Room.
But he was so drunk he had no recollection of being in the Copper Room or of falling off the stool.
Mr Andrew Donaldson QC, pressed Mr Joy about his drinking habits and his arrest in 1985 for being drunk and an earlier conviction for assault.
Mr Joy's lawyer objected and said the questions were irrelevant but Mr Donaldson replied: "This man was wandering about Cookstown in a drunken state and is liable to have suffered injury in any place at any time.
"We don't know where he was before or after this (the fall) and all possibilities are open."
Mr Justice Campbell, who is hearing the case without a jury, adjourned the proceedings until Monday.