Woman, 27, who burnt a bald patch on her scalp handed £15,000 court bill after trying to sue salon
Woman, 27, who burnt a hole on her scalp while trying to dye her hair green at home is handed £15,000 court bill after trying to blame mishap on local salon
Bernadett Codo, 27, tried to sue a London salon for £30,000 over her bald patchShe claimed a stylist was busy on her phone and bleached the hole on her scalp But evidence suggested Codo burnt her hair while trying to dye it green at homeHer ‘dishonest’ claim was rejected and she was ordered to pay £15,000 in costs
<!–
<!–
<!–<!–
<!–
(function (src, d, tag){
var s = d.createElement(tag), prev = d.getElementsByTagName(tag)[0];
s.src = src;
prev.parentNode.insertBefore(s, prev);
}(“https://www.dailymail.co.uk/static/gunther/1.17.0/async_bundle- -.js”, document, “script”));
<!–
DM.loadCSS(“https://www.dailymail.co.uk/static/gunther/gunther-2159/video_bundle- -.css”);
<!–
A woman who burnt a bald patch on to her scalp while trying to dye her hair green has been hit with a £15,000 court bill after trying to pin the blame for the crackpot disaster on a local salon.
Bernadett Codo, 27, claimed a stylist at trendy north London salon Mess Hair and Beauty had scorched the hole in her hair with bleach while distracted by her phone during a £150 appointment in July 2017.
She sued the salon owner for £30,000, telling Central London County Court how she had ‘screamed in pain’ and cried after her hairdresser pasted bleach straight onto her scalp while running around on her phone.
But Judge Heather Baucher threw out her case and hit her with a £15,000 court bill after finding that the story was a ‘bizarre’ bid to cover up damage she had caused to her own naturally brown locks while trying to dye them green at home.
Bernadett Codo, 27, pictured outside Central London County Court before the unsuccessful hearing in the case against her hairdresser
The court heard that Ms Codo sued the salon, claiming she ended up with a ‘permanently bald patch’ after her scalp was scorched by bleach while having her locks dyed in a blonde and grey fade using a trendy ‘ombre’ blending technique in July 2017.
She claimed the damage was done when her hairdresser botched her £150 ombre treatment, in which the roots remain darker and the hair is gradually bleached from the middle section down.
Ms Codo said the stylist who coloured her hair was distracted while applying peroxide to her hair and roots at the salon in Green Lanes, Haringey.
From the witness box, she claimed the hairdresser was ‘on the phone and running up and down’ as she pasted bleach straight onto her roots and ‘all over my scalp’.
She screamed in pain from the burning sensation, Ms Codo told Central London County Court, and later was ‘laughed at’ by other customers due to her white translucent hair.
But after a day in court, Judge Heather Baucher rejected her ‘fundamentally dishonest’ damages claim, labelling her account of events ‘bizarre’.
Medical evidence suggested that any hair damage suffered by Ms Codo was ‘sustained by her own hands when she dyed her hair green’, the judge found, telling her to pay the £15,000 court costs in the case.
The stylist who handled Ms Codo’s treatment insisted she had never applied bleach to her scalp – as it was not part of the ombré technique – and that her customer had paid up and left the salon apparently ‘pleased with the result’.
She did not take a phone call while working on Ms Codo’s hair, said the seasoned hairdresser, labelling her customer’s version of events ‘impossible’.
‘She was adamant that the product was never applied to Ms Codo’s scalp,’ explained Judge Baucher.
Codo attempted to sue Mess Hair & Beauty salon in Haringey, north London, for £30,000 but she has had her ‘fundamentally dishonest’ claim thrown out
And although Ms Codo said the salon treatment left her with an unsightly bald patch on her scalp, the judge said a photo of her taken around August 2017 did nothing to support her case.
‘Whilst the claimant was vague as to the date, I am not persuaded that photograph shows anything other than a normal scalp,’ said Judge Baucher.
‘Even Ms Codo conceded that it did not show any balding.’
Expert medical evidence suggested that if Ms Codo had poured an off-the-shelf dye on her hair it could easily have caused the chemical burns she complained about, the court heard.
Judge Baucher said: ‘I find that this report supports the (salon’s) contention that any injury the claimant suffered was sustained by her own hands when she dyed her hair green.’
She added: ‘This is not a case of mistake…Ms Codo’s description is so stark and so bizarre that the only conclusion this court can reach is that it is a fabricated account.’
Branding her case ‘dishonest and fraudulently advanced,’ she also ordered Ms Codo to pick up the £15,000 bill for the costs of the case.
