Former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson forced to ‘crawl off train’ | Tanni Grey-Thompson

Former Paralympic athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson has spoken out about her anger after she had to drag herself off a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train because there were no staff to help her.

The multiple Olympic and Paralympic champion said she was stranded at London’s King’s Cross station on Monday night on a train from Leeds as she tried to reach the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Paris on Wednesday.

She said: “After sitting at King’s Cross for 16 minutes, there was no one to be seen. I have a couple of bags – I had to throw them on the platform, get out of my seat, sit on the floor right by the door, which is not particularly pleasant, and then crawl away.

“I can’t crawl, but I had to sit on the floor, drag my legs, pull myself across the floor and then make sure I didn’t lose my shoes or my phone, on the platform. There was no one around. I was pretty angry last night, I have to say.”

LNER said it was investigating the incident.

Lady Grey-Thompson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she remains furious about the ongoing barriers to travel faced by disabled passengers.

She said: “I’m still quite angry this morning because I can just about get off the train when I have to. There are a lot of people who can’t.”

During the incident, Grey-Thompson pleaded in vain with LNER for help in a series of messages on X while she waited for assistance. One said: “Hey @lner my train has arrived at KGX and there is no one to get me off.” Another said: “@LNER who do I call to get off this train!!! It arrived at KGX 10 minutes ago!!!!!”

She later posted: “At 10:17pm (the train arrived at 10:02pm) I decided to crawl away. I had to carry all my stuff to the platform. A cleaning lady offered to help. They are not insured.”

Grey-Thompson told the Today programme: “(Other disabled) people don’t have my profile. If they can’t tweet angrily or get this kind of help, there’s no help for a lot of other people. Other people would just be left in a much, much worse situation than me. That has to change.”

Grey-Thompson said she was finally helped when a train manager spotted her on the platform on the return journey to Leeds.

She said: “If they hadn’t seen that, I don’t know if I would have gotten out. I would have had to pull the emergency cord and then slowed down the train that was going north.”

Grey-Thompson said she had initially booked assistance for the 7.15pm train to London, but missed that train and had to take a later service.

She said: “Disabled people have a legal right to turn up and go. So I had booked assistance but I didn’t get that train. I can turn up and ask to get on a train. My view is that once someone has put me on a train, I have a contract, which means that someone has to meet me on the other side. The booking system is not really fit for purpose. Every train company does things slightly differently.”

She said level boarding for disabled passengers was due to be introduced in January 2020, but that “every government has postponed the issue”.

She added: “It’s going to be 100 years now before we have a level boarding system and I can get on a train without permission or support from a non-disabled person. It’s an old network. I accept 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’ve got to, we’ve got to make a change’.”

LNER said: “We are sorry to hear that there was a problem at London King’s Cross station on Monday evening. We are investigating and are in direct contact with the customer.”