Dame Tanni ‘had to crawl off train’ after no help available
ONE of Britain’s most famous Paralympians had to “crawl off a train” at London King’s Cross station as no-one was there to help her, she said.
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson travelled from Leeds to London King’s Cross on Monday and arrived at 10pm to find no-one there to help and said she was left waiting for 16 minutes.
Baroness Grey-Thompson, from Cardiff, who has spina bifida, was a wheelchair racer and competed in five Games between 1988 and 2004. She claimed 11 gold medals, plus four silvers and a bronze, and was created a life peer in 2010.
She told BBC’s Today programme she missed her 7.15pm train and got on the 7.45pm service, but when she arrived at King’s Cross, no-one was there to meet her.
“I waited five minutes before I put anything on social media, because that’s, you’re meant to leave, sort of five minutes,” she added. “But after 16 minutes of sitting at King’s Cross, no-one in sight, there were a couple of cleaners, but they’re not insured or able to help me off, I decided that I’d crawl off the train.
“So, I’m going to Paris later today, I’ve got a few bags, had to chuck them on the platform, get out of my chair, sit on the floor right by the door, which is not particularly pleasant, and then crawl off.”
She added: “There was no-one around. I mean, I was pretty angry last night.”
She said: “Disabled people have a legal right to turn up and go. So, I had booked assistance, but I hadn’t made that train, so legally, I am allowed to turn up and ask to get on a train. So, my view is, once somebody has put me on a train, I have a contract, which means somebody should meet me at the other end. The booking system is not particularly fit for purpose. Every train company does things slightly differently.
“You know, we were meant to have level boarding in the UK by January 1, 2020, under the Disability Discrimination Act. Every single government has kicked the can down the road. It is now going to be 100 years before we have level boarding and I can get on a train without the permission or support of a non-disabled person.
“So, I’m still quite angry this morning. I thought I was over it, but I’m not, because I can still just about get off the train if I have to.
“There are loads of people who can’t, and it was only the train manager on the 11 o’clock train going north saw me getting off the train that somebody came along. If they hadn’t have seen that, I don’t know whether I would have got off.”
She said she had a call from a senior member of LNER on Monday night and they have were also in touch yesterday morning.
Asked why the Disability Discrimination Act has been “kicked down the road”, she said: “Some of it’s cost, some of it is when trains are being procured level boarding is not in the contract, there are some companies who build trains who don’t really want to build level boarding, so make them much more expensive. And it all just gets accepted and we get forgotten about...
“It’s an old network, I accept it. It’s not cheap or easy to do, but at what point is the government, any government, going to step in and say, OK, we need to make a change?”
LNER managing director David Horne wrote on X: “My sincere apologies for this Tanni. Something has clearly gone wrong here and we’ve let you down. We’ll investigate what went wrong and share the details.”
An LNER spokesperson said: “We are sorry to understand there has been an issue at London King’s Cross station on Monday evening. We are in the process of investigating this and are in contact with the customer.”
The Department for Transport has been approached for comment.