Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson shares her frustration after she was ‘not allowed to get on…

January 1, 2025, 11:15 am | Updated: January 1, 2025, 11:29 am

Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson told LBC how a driver refused to let her board a London bus on New Year’s Eve.

Baroness Grey-Thompson told LBC’s Matthew Wright she tried to board a bus in a wheelchair in central London on Tuesday.

Drivers are supposed to open the rear doors of the bus to let wheelchair users in, 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 “difficult discussion” with the driver.

The driver told her that she should take the bus at the back, but the bus left before she could get her family ready to board.

Read more: Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson forced to ‘crawl’ from train at Kings Cross station

Read more: Disabled journalist Frank Gardner expresses outrage after being forced to crawl on the floor of a plane to use the toilet

Luckily for her, an “amazing woman” with a stroller who was getting off a stop later got off so Grey-Thompson could get on because she was going much further.

“Absolutely amazing woman, she didn’t have to do this,” Matthew Grey-Thompson said.

“But we shouldn’t argue about whether I can get on the bus.

“And there are a lot of disabled people who just don’t have enough confidence to do it because of how many times they’ve been knocked down.

“One person on social media said, ‘How dare you get on the bus’ – you’re kind of ignoring her – but we don’t live in an equal society and politics isn’t in the best place right now.

“I don’t think about it often, but I really do now because a lot of people outside of London and Westminster are struggling (and) don’t know the way out.”

Earlier this year, Grey-Thompson told how she was forced to “crawl” off an LNER train at Kings Cross station after no station staff helped her off.

Grey-Thompson competed in wheelchair racing for Great Britain for 16 years before announcing her retirement, having won 16 Paralympic medals in her career.

In recent years, the former athlete has become a television expert and activist for the rights of people with disabilities.