A young woman catastrophically injured when her scarf got tangled around the axle of go-kart has had her hopes of a multi-million-pound damages payout dashed by a High Court judge.

Sophie Poole was 21 when on Easter Monday 2009, she and five young friends went to a Guiseley car park for a spin on the former racing kart.

While Miss Poole’s boyfriend Andrew Carrack played with a model helicopter, she got behind the wheel of the 160cc kart – which was owned by her friend, local builder and kart enthusiast, David Abbott – and set off on a circuit which ended in appalling tragedy.

One of her friends screamed as she spotted Sophie’s head leaning back at an unnatural angle. Her scarf had wound itself round the kart’s axle and she had stopped breathing.

Mr Carrack and Mr Abbott desperately tried to free her by ripping the scarf apart but Mr Abbott eventually had to lift the kart off the ground before the garment could be unravelled from around Sophie’s neck.

He carried out cardio-pulmonary resuscitation at the scene and managed to get her breathing again before she was evacuated to hospital by air ambulance.

Miss Poole’s spinal and other injuries were described as “catastrophic” by Mrs Justice Swift.

In the case for damages, the High Court judge ruled neither Mr Abbott, nor anyone else, could be blamed for the disaster and dismissed her claim.

The ruling announced on Monday means that she will go without a penny in compensation.

The judge said: “I recognise that the outcome of this case will be a great disappointment to Sophie and I am deeply sympathetic to her plight.

“However, my conclusion is that she suffered a tragic accident in circumstances which cannot properly be attributed to the fault of any of those involved.”

The court had heard how Miss Poole had only driven a kart once before – at a birthday party when she was 12 and her lawyers had argued that Mr Abbott should never have allowed her to get behind the wheel of a former racing vehicle which had unguarded working parts.

But the judge said Miss Poole had exercised a free choice when she accepted Mr Abbott’s invitation to drive one of his karts and the unguarded parts were “there to be seen”.

Mrs Justice Swift also rejected Miss Poole’s damages claim against a karting company from which Mr Abbott was alleged to have acquired the vehicle a few months before the accident.

Her lawyers had earlier withdrawn a claim against the firm that originally manufactured the kart in 1997.

Last night Miss Poole’s solicitor Neil Sugarman said his client was devastated by the decision and the possibility of an appeal had not been ruled out.

He said they would be making no further comment.