By the time disabled social worker Vikki Walton-Cole arrived at court, she was already “in pain and unable to walk”.<\/p>\n
She was not then a full-time wheelchair user. But as the court had no on-site or nearby parking, it was a “massive effort” to walk from much further disabled parking, she told BBC podcast Access All.<\/p>\n
When she then discovered the courtroom was only accessible by stairs, she “burst into tears”.<\/p>\n
“That’s obviously not a great way to arrive at court as the professional.”<\/p>\n
Walton-Cole says access issues like these were a “massive factor” in her decision to leave social work “because there’s just too many barriers in the court system”.<\/p>\n
The BBC has heard that inaccessible courts have led to a number of issues for disabled people, including jurors feeling vulnerable, and lawyers having to join cases remotely despite being metres from the courtroom.<\/p>\n
Under the Equality Act, courts must provide “reasonable adjustments” to those with disabilities.<\/p>\n
A HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) spokesperson said: “We are working closely with disability groups to reduce the barriers disabled people face when accessing justice.”<\/p>\n
Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Contact Kateryna at: accessall@bbc.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time disabled social worker Vikki Walton-Cole arrived at court, she was already “in pain and unable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-639131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}