A POLISH factory worker who says she was knocked down by a motorist buying a bottle of wine, is claiming six-figure compensation for being left gravely brain damaged.

Iwona Sobelewska, 42, says she was 'run over' by Michel Alfred Threlfall in the car park of Whitehead's Food and Off Licence, in Blackburn, in February 2012.

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Her lawyers have told London's High Court that she suffered a badly broken ankle and a severe head injury.

Ms Sobelewska, of Bentham Close, Mill Hill, Blackburn, has no memory of the incident, a top judge heard.

But Mr Threlfall's insurers deny he was in any way to blame for her injuries.

They claim that Ms Sobolewska may have sustained the injuries in an earlier assault, or fall, before ending up under the car.

Gerard MacDermot QC, for Ms Sobelewska, told Mr Justice Foskett that Mr Threlfall, of Shakespeare Avenue, Blackburn, had stopped at the off-licence in his Peugeot 306 to buy a bottle of wine at about 8pm on February 12 2012.

When the emergency services were called, Ms Sobelewska was 'found next to the car with her left leg under the sill and with a severe injury to her head'.

The car was still in the car park of the off licence - which lay on Ms Sobelewska's route home from work.

Mr MacDermot told the judge that the insurers - represented by Tim Horlock QC - assert that Ms Sobelewska 'may have had a fit or collapsed due to alcohol'.

Alternatively, they say she may have walked to the car park after sustaining her injuries earlier. They deny that a low-speed impact with the car caused her serious harm.

Mr MacDermot, however, insisted that the motorist was 'looking behind him whilst driving forwards'.

He added that Ms Sobelewska 'is tee-total'.

He told the judge: "It is suggested that she may have suffered this grievous head injury at an earlier stage, recovered, then found herself in this car park.

"But there was precious little time for her to have left work, to be assaulted or to have fallen seriously, then to have got back to this car park.

"We say this case is simple and straightforward."

Insisting it was simply not possible that she was injured elsewhere, the QC added: "She would not have been able to walk on the ankle fractures."

Proceeding.