Accidental Damage, Broken Microphone and the 90 Day Warranty

Hi guys, hopefully someone can help me out. I recently purchased an iPad 2 in Westfield, Stratford about a month ago. As you can imagine, I was pretty gutted when I dropped it from my lap onto a mug causing the top right of the frame to shatter, and a single hairline crack across the screen. I counted my blessings that the LCD screen hadn't actually broken, and obviously realised that this accidental damage was not covered under the apple warranty.

After continuing to use my ipad for another 2 weeks perfectly, I noticed that facetime wasn't working, where it previously had even after the accident (almost every day for two weeks) After taking my iPad to a different store, I was disappointed to discover that they wouldn't replace the ipad due to the accidental damage, which the technician agreed with me is extremely unlikely to have caused the microphone damage. They claimed that my warranty was voided by the accidental damage (even though I had been advised by apple not to get my ipad repaired after the accidental damage due to it voiding the warranty, but i'm willing to leave that for another day). However, upon reading the warranty, the only relevant parts I can seem to find states that apple don't cover accidental damage, even though it is not the accidental damage I wanted replaced, it's the faulty part. I understand and have been told numerous times that 'that's how apple works,' which is fine, they can work how they want and it's obviously proved successful so far. But what I don't understand is how the 'way apple work's' causes their warranty to become void and ends up penalizing the customer. Following some further research, my statutory rights indicate that I am entitled to a replacement under UK law.

Can anyone suggest any actions I take next? An advisor on the phone suggested I take the iPad back to Westfield to make a complaint about the consumer law, but this will prove difficult as I am currently a student in Sheffield.

Thanks,

Lloyd