A woman told a judge in the High Court in Belfast yesterday that she had devoted her life to caring for her son who was paralysed as a result of falling off a bar stool. Ms Violet Joy (63) said that for months she made a 100-mile round journey to visit her son, Mr William Joy, in hospital in Belfast.
And for five years afterwards she and her daughter prepared his meals and fed him, washed him, and did his shopping and laundry.
Ms Joy said when her son, now 37 and confined to a wheelchair, first came home from hospital he had to be lifted in bed and turned every two hours day and night.
"My husband, daughter and myself took it in turns," she said. "William was never left alone."
Mr Joy, a former butcher, of Princess Avenue, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, was left a virtual quadriplegic after he fell off a bar stool in the Copper Room, Cookstown, in 1989.
He is claiming damages against Mr Michael Newell, then landlord of the pub, who has denied liability.
The court has been told that Mr Joy, a bachelor, had drunk 13 vodkas and four pints of beer before going into the Copper Room.
He was so drunk that he could not remember being in the pub, let alone the fall which broke his neck and ruined his life.
The hearing continues today.