A grandmother from Brackenfell in Cape Town is suing a British strip club for millions of rand after suffering an eye injury when she was reportedly hit in the face by a flying pair of trousers during a raunchy show while on holiday in the UK.
Rapport newspaper reported on Sunday that Merle Groenewald, 58, claims she was left with a permanent eye injury and is now suing the popular Dreamboys male stripper troupe for £150 000 (R2.7m).
According to Rapport, she works at a well-known hotel in Cape Town while her husband Johann is a retired police officer.
According to City Press, Groenewald claims to have suffered "devastating injuries".
UK-based tabloid The Sun reported that Groenewald was on a girls' night out with some friends at the Rise club in Leicester Square in London in December 2014 where they sat in the front row with their knees touching the stage.
Four sexy "firemen" were performing at the time and when they stripped off their trousers and threw them toward the audience. One pair reportedly struck Groenewald right in the face.
Attorney Mark Mulrooney told The Sun: "One of the performers flicked his trousers toward the audience, but part of the trousers caught Mrs Groenewald in the eyes and caused her to suffer injury.
"She suffered a severe blunt injury to her left eye which caused her to require surgery.
"She has lost useful vision in her left eye and suffered a temporary injury to her right eye," Mulrooney reportedly said.
The SA granny told the court she was suing Dreamboys because it "failed to ensure that there was sufficient space between the performers and the audience, so as to ensure that the performance could be carried out safely", The Mirror reported.
According to The Sun, Dreamboys argued an accident involving being injured by a stripper's trousers was not "reasonably foreseeable".
Churchgoer Merle told The Sun at her home in Cape Town: "It's in God's hands now."
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