A barmaid who had almost completed her first night’s work at a pub where her brother also worked died when she apparently slipped and fell down the cellar steps.

The Lancashire Telegraph reports that young mother Caroline Greenhalgh, 35, was working at the Baroque public house in Blackburn for just one evening. Miss Greenhalgh’s brother, John, was the bar manager at the pub.

She had been drinking during her shift, an inquest heard, but was ‘merry’ rather than drunk, said her brother. She had been dancing with two female colleagues before sitting at the top of the cellar steps for a cigarette break.

Fellow barmaid Catherine Cowperthwaite told the inquest that she left Ms Greenhalgh sitting on the top step, but when she next saw her, she was lying at the bottom of the steps in the cellar itself.

Another colleague, the pub’s manager Jacqueline Hall, told the inquest that she had seen the two female members of staff sitting on the top step of a flight of stairs leading to the cellar at around 1.40am. Ms Cowperthwaite had then joined her behind the bar, saying that Ms Greenhalgh would also be returning behind the bar shortly.

‘When I looked through the glass door I could see Caroline wasn’t there and when I opened the door wide I saw her at the bottom of the cellar steps,’ said Ms Hall.

Staff tried to revive Ms Greenhalgh and paramedics also attempted to resuscitate her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ms Hall told the inquest that it was presumed that Ms Greenhalgh had slipped and fallen down the stairs. She was found to have suffered a fractured skull. The cause of death was given as traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage due to fracture of the base of the skull.

The coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of accidental death and added that, having seen the photographic evidence of Ms Greenhalgh’s death, he understood how traumatic the incident must have been for staff at the pub.

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