A court yesterday ordered a hairdresser to pay more than €5,000 to a woman whose hair and scalp she burned while putting in highlights.

The client herself was found partly responsible for the injury because she had not sought medical assistance immediately.

The case goes back to September 2003, when Veron Cutajar went for what she thought would be a routine visit to her hairdresser, Lilian Bugeja.

As she usually did, Ms Bugeja used a bleach preparation on the client's hair to create highlights. She covered the hair in foil and heated it for 12 minutes.

But something went wrong because the treatment burned some of Ms Cutajar's scalp and hair.

Medical experts later established that Ms Cutajar had suffered total hair loss in the areas where the bleach preparation had come in contact with her skull.

On this basis, the court concluded that there was a direct link between the work carried out by the hairdresser and the injury sustained by Ms Cutajar.

However, the court noted that Ms Cutajar had only gone to a doctor after six weeks - a delay that could have aggravated her condition.

The judge therefore ordered Ms Bugeja to pay Ms Cutajar €5,689.97 in damages.