77-year-old Gwyneth Coles had just arrived in her home town of Pickering, North Yorkshire after vacationing in Scotland when she needed to use the public toilets. She went in around 6:30 PM and was unable to come back out until 7 AM the next day.
While she was relieving herself in the toilet a caretaker locked the block of toilets up for the night, not knowing she was inside.
An official for the Ryedale District Council claimed that the toilet attendant asked if anyone was still inside before he bolted the doors, but he never heard anything from Gwyneth Coles.
"We do have a procedure where the toilet should be physically checked to make sure there's nobody in the cubicles and obviously we didn't carry that out," said John Davison, director of operations at the council.
"We obviously should not have locked Mrs Coles in the toilet."
Coles tried banging on the door and shouting, but no one heard her. She ended up making the best of the situation and got herself as comfortable as possible. With her suitcase handy she put on four jumpers, her jacket and macintosh to keep warm and cozy. She had some biscuits in her bag that she was able to make a small meal of. She even got some sleep sitting on a toilet.
At 7 AM the next day she finally got to leave her toilet prison.
"This will go down in family history - the night great-grandma got locked in the loo," she told the York Press.
"I think it's hilarious now, although it was pretty traumatic at the time."
The council apologized to Mrs. Coles for her ordeal and has promised an investigation into how this situation happened. They will now consider installing emergency doors to prevent any future occurrence.
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