A mother of two from Northampton is suing her tour operator for £300,000 after a ski-doo accident on a wintersports holiday left her paralysed.

Emma Moore, a personal trainer and experienced skier and snowboarder, was three days short of her 38th birthday when she suffered an accident on a snowmobile at the Italian resort of Paradiso Passo Tonale in January 2007.

Mrs Moore claims that tour operator Hotelplan Ltd, trading as Inghams Travel, is at fault for the accident which left her paralysed from the waist down. Moore and her party bought the trip from an Inghams rep which offered the chance to “feel like 007 in the mountains” and take part in a “ski-doo sensation.”

Taking up the offer, Moore, who was an experienced skier but had never been on a ski-doo, was told that she would be given instructions by the garage operator, Adriano Tantera.

Her Counsel, Michael McParland, told London’s High Court this week that the instructions she was given were “very brief and wholly inadequate” and that the fault lay with the tour operator because, as far as those taking part were concerned, “this was an Inghams trip.”

The court heard that after a briefing lasting only 30-seconds, in which the basic controls were demonstrated, but not the emergency brake, and no information regarding safety warnings were given, the party set off.

Mrs Moore told how, as she reached the foot of a hill, the ski-doo continued to gain pace and when she pulled the brake lever nothing happened.

“It just seemed to go faster and faster,” she told the court. “It was at this point that I realised we were going to crash.”

Counsel told that, after hitting a slope which threw her passenger from the machine, Mrs Moore managed to avoid the rest of her party but careered into a car park, crashing into vehicles and sustaining her “terrible injuries.”

“She was sent off on a trip,,, on a powerful Polaris skidoo with virtually nothing by way of safety instruction, “ her counsel told the court. “She was not properly instructed… and she should never have been there.”

Mrs Moore is claiming £300,000 in compensation.

The holiday company deny liability and instead argue that the responsibility lies with Mr Tantera for not giving proper instructions. They are also arguing that Mrs Moore couldn’t have been braking as an investigation found no defects in the machine.