Nationalised rail firm ‘was desperate’ to settle trio of discrimination cases, as calls mount for stronger laws

A newly-nationalised rail company desperately tried to settle three separate cases of discrimination taken against it by a disabled campaigner, just weeks after the firm was brought under state control.

GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway) offered as much as £20,000 to Doug Paulley if he agreed to drop the three cases, which involved serious passenger assistance failures on Southern.

The cases were due at Leeds Combined Court Centre this week for a civil trial but were eventually settled in court without a trial on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the government’s railways bill is proceeding through the House of Lords, with accessible transport campaigners calling for the legislation to include far stronger measures on accessibility and disability rights.

GTR was nationalised on 31 May.

Paulley believes both the political sensitivity of the railways bill and the recent nationalisation of GTR influenced the company’s apparent desperation to settle his three cases.

Last week, he rejected GTR’s attempts to persuade him to drop the cases and insisted that the company needed to make “concrete changes” to its procedures.

Paulley eventually agreed to accept £10,000 in damages, much less than the £20,000 he had been offered, in exchange for important legal undertakings from GTR.

GTR has also accepted liability for the three incidents, while the judge has accepted GTR’s admission that it discriminated against him in each case.

Paulley told Disability News Service (DNS): “I will not be bought off and silenced with some confidential money agreement.

“Although some money has got to be paid to show the impact, it is not the reason I took these cases.

“The reason I do it is to attempt to force accountability and change within the ableist parts of the rail industry, so I wouldn’t accept an agreement without concrete actions.”

The three incidents took place last summer in the lead-up to 26 July.

During the week before 26 July, Paulley had repeatedly attempted to arrange accessible transport from North Dulwich – which has no wheelchair access – to East Dulwich station in south-east London.

GTR’s contracted taxi provider repeatedly booked standard black cabs for him, despite a note recording that a large vehicle was needed for a tall passenger, causing him a week of “unresolved anxiety”.

A suitable vehicle was finally confirmed on the morning he was due to travel, on 26 July.

Paulley (pictured) had also asked GTR’s assisted travel team to book wheelchair spaces on two legs of the journey that were operated by LNER and TransPennine Express.

GTR initially said the booking “couldn’t be done” on its own system and told Paulley to contact LNER and TransPennine Express himself.

It was only after he insisted that GTR had a duty to arrange the spaces that the company made the calls itself and completed the bookings.

The third case came after he arrived early for a service he had booked from East Dulwich to London Bridge and was asked if he wanted to take an earlier service.

When he agreed, Paulley – a wheelchair-user – was told his booked assistance would also be transferred, but no member of staff was waiting for him at London Bridge.

He had to prevent the train departing while other passengers sought help from staff when no-one attended the emergency alarm he had activated.

In addition to the damages, admission of liability and the judge’s finding of discrimination, GTR has had to make formal legal undertakings about its future actions by sending written instructions to staff that Paulley hopes will prevent each of the three incidents happening again.

It has been warned that its directors could face jail if it does not meet these undertakings.

It was also told by the judge – in granting Paulley costs of £435 – that its behaviour in the weeks and months leading up to Tuesday’s settlement hearing had been “unreasonable”.

When contacted about the case by DNS, GTR strongly refuted the suggestion that it had wanted to settle the cases out of court because it had recently been nationalised and due to pressure on the government to strengthen the railways bill on disability rights, access and discrimination.

It claimed that 99.8 per cent of its assisted travel bookings were carried out successfully.

Contrasting independent figures from the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), found last December that 10 per cent of disabled passengers who booked support through GTR did not receive any of the assistance they had booked.

GTR claims the ORR figure is based on a survey with relatively low sample sizes, and its own figure is hard data that is reported to the government.

GTR is one of the train companies that has gone furthest in running driver-only operated trains to unstaffed stations, often replacing onboard and station staff with roving “mobile” staffing units, campaigners have warned previously.

And four years ago, GTR admitted in a leaked document that it had been breaching access laws for more than 10 years across large parts of its rail network.

GTR was also highlighted three years ago by The Association of British Commuters (ABC) as a key offender in denying disabled passengers the ability to “turn up and go” without booking assistance in advance.

GTR claimed this week that Paulley had only had to wait two and a half minutes for a member of staff to arrive and a further 20 seconds to be assisted off the service, when it fact – as he had recorded on video – he had been forced to pull the emergency alarm, which GTR failed to answer, and then enlist members of the public to find a staff member.

GTR also claimed that its staff member had only “suggested” that Paulley make the wheelchair bookings himself, when he recorded them saying he “needed” to do so.

Both these claims had been corrected by the judge this week, said Paulley.

A GTR spokesperson said in a statement: “Some 99.8 per cent of assisted travel bookings are carried out successfully at GTR, supporting hundreds of thousands of rail passengers to travel independently every year.

“Sometimes, however, things do not go right and we’re very sorry that, due to human error, our assisted travel service on this occasion did not meet the high standards we set ourselves for our passengers.

“In every aspect, assistance was ultimately provided for Mr Paulley to complete his journey but mistakes were made along the way and we apologise unreservedly for the distress this caused.

“Much of what we have undertaken to the court to do is already part of our assisted travel process.

“We will redouble our efforts by rebriefing our suppliers and colleagues to ensure our process is followed with all reasonable endeavours in future.”

*Doug Paulley is a DNS subscriber