The manager of a nightclub where a queueing student died after a partition screen fell on her in a crowd surge said it appeared busier than usual outside the premises that night.

Stephen Rewcastle was giving evidence at Teesside Crown Court, where the Stonegate Pub Company is on trial accused of four breaches of health and safety regulations, in a prosecution brought by Durham County Council

It arises from the death of first-year Durham University undergraduate Olivia Burt as she waited to get into a busy Wednesday student night at Missoula, in the city, which was operated by Stonegate.

She died from head injuries suffered when a partition barrier or screen fell on her amid a surge in the queue of students waiting to gain access to the rear of Missoula, in the Walkergate complex, late on February 7, 2018.

Read more: Trial told queue surged at Durham nightclub after 'Go, go, go' shouts

Mr Rewcastle said after a previous non-injury incident at the premises, a year earlier, it was noticed that with lateral pressure the perimeter screens could “buckle” or “bow” to up to 20-degrees.

Following a review of security and queue management, it was decided that students queueing outside the main front entrance in the Walkergate complex would not do so alongside the perimeter screens.

Instead they would remain in a holding area, before being brought in small groups past the screens to be checked just outside the door and then permitted to enter.

Mr Rewcastle said this was not the case at the rear of the premises, as the amended policy was for pre-paid wrist-band holders to be allowed swift entrance after brief identity checks, without the need to queue alongside the screens.

This situation would continue until midnight, when the policy was for the rear doors to be closed.

Read more: Trial continues into Durham student's barrier fall death at nightclub

But the court has heard that on February 7, 2018, the premises seemed to fill up quicker and queues developed after 11pm with wrist-band holders waiting to gain access at the rear unlike the usual swifter walk-in situation.

Mr Rewcastle said it was usual for groups of students to arrive after 11.15, following closure of the various college bars around the city.

He said the last time he looked from the back door, at about 11.30pm, there were a large number of students outside.

Asked if he envisaged people queueing at the back door, he said: “No, because everyone had a wrist-band.”

Referring to a still image of the queue at the rear at 11.39pm, ten minutes before the fatal "catastrophe", prosecution counsel Jamie Hill KC asked Mr Rewcastle if that’s what he would have expected at that time, usually.

“I would have expected people in the queue to be entering the premises,” said Mr Rewcastle.

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Asked by defence counsel, Prashant Popat KC, if the accident involved a large volume of people being beside the perimeter screen (at the back of the premises), he agreed.

“Having people standing alongside would not be unusual, but what was unusual was them not to be moving.”

Stonegate denies the four charges brought by the council and the trial continues tomorrow (Wednesday, June 28).