A judge has ruled that entertainer and comedian Jim Davidson was not liable for injuries suffered by a teacher who fell over on a seaside pier complex run by him.

Mary Kyne, 52, of Newcastle, claimed that Davidson had failed to ensure that the Wellington Pier at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, was properly lit and maintained.

But Judge Patrick O'Brien dismissed her claim for damages following a hearing at Norwich County Court.

Davidson, 49, of Oakwood Hill, Surrey, said outside court: "I feel completely vindicated. Justice has been done and seen to have been done."

Mrs Kyne fell and fractured a vertebra in her spine when leaving a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado at a theatre on the pier in May 1999.

Mrs Kyne, who lived in Lowestoft, Suffolk, at the time she was injured, claimed that she had slipped on a tuft of grass growing between paving stones outside the pier.

But the judge said she had failed to establish the cause of the accident and failed to prove that the pier was badly lit.