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Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson shares frustration after 'not being allowed to get on London bus' by driver
1 January 2025, 11:15 | Updated: 1 January 2025, 12:31
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson tells LBC how she was 'denied access' to London bus
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson has told LBC of how she was refused access to a London bus by the driver on New Year's Eve.
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Baroness Grey-Thompson told LBC's Matthew Wright that she was trying to get on the central London bus in her wheelchair on Tuesday.
The drivers are supposed to open the back doors of the bus to let wheelchair users on, but "the driver had absolutely no intention of letting me on", she said.
Grey-Thompson, who was with her family at the time, said she had "a bit of a robust discussion" with the driver.
The driver told her that she should get on the bus behind, but that bus had left by the time she managed to get her family ready to get on it.
Read more: Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson forced to 'crawl' off train at Kings Cross Station
Luckily for her an "amazing woman" with a buggy who was getting off one stop later got off so Grey-Thompson could get on, as she was travelling a lot further.
"Absolutely amazing woman, she did not have to do that," Grey-Thompson told Matthew.
"But we shouldn't be arguing about whether or not I can get on a bus.
"And there's lots of disabled people who just don't have the confidence to do that because of how many times they've been knocked back.
"I did have one person on social media say 'how dare you get on a bus' - you kind of ignore them - but we don't live in an equal society and politics is not in a great place at the moment.
"I don't often feel that about that but actually I do right now because there are a lot of people who are not connected to London and Westminster who are struggling (and) don't know a way out of things."
Grey-Thompson said earlier this year how she had been forced to 'crawl off' an LNER train at Kings Cross Station after no station staff came to help her alight her train.
Grey-Thompson competed in wheelchair racing for Britain for 16 years before announcing her retirement, winning 16 Paralympic medals over the course of her career.
Recent years have seen the former athlete become a television pundit, as well as a disability rights activist.
