A teacher is suing for at least £150,000 compensation after claiming a set of shelves fell on her head in a staffroom.

Sally-Ann Gilpin, 40, said she suffered daily headaches, blurred vision, memory loss and pain in her neck and legs after the accident at Gossops Green First School in Crawley.

The deputy head teacher claimed she also slipped on water from a Christmas tree while taking assembly at the school.

She is suing West Sussex County Council for damages exceeding £150,000 for personal injuries.

Ms Gilpin remained tight-lipped yesterday over the writ at her home in West Green, Crawley.

She stayed holed up for most of the afternoon inside her £250,000 house.

A timid Ms Gilpin ventured to the front door, at first only opening it on a security chain.

When she opened it fully, she declined to talk to The Argus about the writ.

She had no comment to make on the fact she was pictured carrying bags of shopping in yesterday's edition of The Sun newspaper.

The picture appeared to show Ms Gilpin lugging heavy bags from her car to her home after a trip to Asda.

The newspaper claimed one of its reporters watched the teacher get out of the vehicle with her walking stick under her arm before she made repeated trips to unload the shopping.

In a writ filed in the High Court Of Justice, Ms Gilpin claims to be 80 per cent disabled for life as a result of the shelving falling on her from a height of 2m on October 25 2001.

The writ states: "The claimant, while acting in the course of her employment, was sitting in a chair in the staffroom at the school when shelving, consisting of three shelves, on the wall above her seat came away from the wall, whereby files, box files, books and other teaching materials fell from the shelving, hitting her on the top and back of the head, neck and right shoulder, whereby she sustained loss and damage."

The writ states Ms Gilpin, who earned £35,000 a year in her job, had trouble remembering the events immediately after the accident.

She developed severe headaches and pain in her neck, shoulders and mid-back and later suffered pins and needles and cramps in her arms and legs.

Three months after the accident she was unable to hold a pen.

It says she also lost control of her bowels and eventually full control of her legs, while her speech became slurred.

By March 2002 she needed crutches to walk. She progressed to using a stick but claimed to still have difficulty sleeping and needs to take up to eight painkillers a day.

The second accident, involving the Christmas tree, occurred six weeks after the shelving fall.

According to the writ: "The claimant slipped on a damp patch on the floor, which had been caused by the bringing in of a damp Christmas tree, which had been left lying on the floor of the hall.

"She landed on her buttocks and twisted trying to avoid hitting a child and thereby sustained loss and damage."

The case is expected to be heard before the High Court Queen's Bench Division by the end of this year.

As well as compensation for her alleged injuries, Ms Gilpin also wants damages over her loss of injuries for the rest of her life.

In the writ she contends she would have become a head teacher by the age of 45, with a salary of between £42,240 and £48,951.

If Ms Gilpin's claim was successful, the council would also face paying legal fees of more than £100,000.