A WALK behind a bar for a bottle opener ended in tragedy for a Blackpool restaurant customer.

Nigel Eric Allen, 35, who was living with his mother at Corbridge Close, Blackpool, died from severe head injuries after falling through a trapdoor into the cellar of the restaurant last October, an inquest heard on February 26.

Holiday flat owner Mr Allen was visiting the Star of India restaurant on Bond Street when the accident happened in the early hours of October 13.

According to witness statements, Mr Allen helped himself to a bottled beer, as he was sometimes allowed to, but then asked for a bottle opener.

Staff asked him not to go behind the bar because a trap door to the cellar was open. But Mr Allen apparently did not see it as he was looking up at the bottle opener and plunged about six feet to the cellar floor.

One restaurant customer said in a statement Mr Allen appeared to be drunk but "not paralytic".

Shortly after 2am he saw Mr Allen go behind the bar. "About ten seconds later I heard the sound of a bottle smashing.

"I got up and went to the bar, I looked over and I could see the bloke lying at the bottom of the cellar steps." Mr Allen was rushed by ambulance to Blackpool Victoria Hospital but was declared dead by staff.

A post mortem by pathologist Dr James Johnston later confirmed that Mr Allen had died from head injuries.

He also found that at the time of the examination Mr Allen had only a "relatively small amount of alcohol" in his blood.

Restaurant owner Zaheer Khan, of Lytham Road, Blackpool, confirmed that staff often had to go into the cellar to get stock, but when doing so they made sure they told other members of staff.

He said there had never been a problem prior to Mr Allen's death, and a clear sign warning customers not to go behind the bar had been put up some weeks before the accident.

Fylde Coroner Samuel Lee said Mr Allen may have misunderstood or tragically forgotten the warning not to go behind the bar "in a moment of aberration".

Mr Lee recorded a verdict of accidental death on Mr Allen and said: "I am perfectly satisfied that what happened here was nothing more or less than a tragic accident."