A MAYORESS is recovering in hospital after a fall on a flight of hotel stairs.

April Martin, Mayoress of Ripon, was with her husband Stuart Martin when the accident happened at the Old Deanery hotel and restaurant, next to Ripon Cathedral.

The couple had earlier attended an engagement at the cathedral.

Mrs Martin, who suffered back injuries, is a community nurse in Ripon.

She was later transferred from the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, to the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

She has now returned to the Northallerton hospital, where her condition was described as comfortable.