大象传媒

Denise takes a look at the most famous cases in Scottish legal history. Hilarious tales and dramatic trials where ordinary people fought the law and the law didn't win.

This is the story of the Paisley Snail, an unlikely tale that's become one of the most well-known cases to lawyers around the world.

When May Donoghue, a shop assistant from the Barras, took a trip to the Wellmeadow Cafe in Paisley during the Glasgow Fair of 1928, little did she know she was on her way to making legal history. May ordered an ice cream float with ginger beer and was horrified when a decomposed snail slithered out of the bottle when she poured the second half into her float.

May was diagnosed with gastro-enteritis and shock. She was off her work for weeks. Her struggle for justice went all the way to the House of Lords and formed the basis of the modern law of negligence which places a duty of care on each and every one of us not to act in a way that could foreseeably injure our neighbours.

Denise tries to find out what they don't tell you in law school: who May Donoghue was and what became of her.