A blind woman has slammed a Transport for London (TfL) staff member who she claims refused to properly guide her on a “chaotic” train platform – leaving her fearing for her safety.
Sassy Wyatt, 30, from London, was travelling through London Bridge Underground Station with a fellow visually-impaired friend when the incident happened in September.
Sassy shared the clip on Twitter last week (February 2022) after hearing more reports of visually impaired people left feeling uncomfortable after using TfL services.
The duo had been travelling from Waterloo Station, where a staff member had radioed ahead to confirm they could have sighted guidance – which involves the blind person grasping above the elbow of the guide and following a half-step behind them – on arrival in London Bridge.
But when they reached their destination, Sassy, who uses a cane and guide dog, Ida, claims the member of staff assigned to them failed to greet them at the carriage door, leaving her to shout for assistance on the busy platform.
When the staff member reached them, she claims he gave them unclear instructions to follow him and failed to offer his elbow.
“He said ‘come here, down the middle and this way’ – not good instructions for a blind person, especially by a train track,” Sassy, a disability awareness consultant, told Jam Press.
“It was chaos, as it often is underground, and the whole point of him being there was to assist us, so walking away from us was not doing his duty.
“He put us in danger.”
When they reached him, body camera footage shows Sassy requesting the sighted guidance she had requested.
In the video, Sassy can be seen in the station with a member of the TfL staff leading the way.
Sassy says: “We need to take your elbow. We need to take your arm. We can’t see where we are going and these backpacks are really heavy.
“We asked for someone to be side-by-siding us, not social distancing.”
The employee approaches them and she repeats she needs to take his elbow.
The employee says he is guiding them.
Sassy says: “Sighted guiding is when a blind person takes your elbow and we can follow you. Social distanced guiding is–”
She is cut off by the employee who says: “I’m aware, we are not at school, I’m just helping you.”
When asked, he confirms he is a member of staff and Sassy asks for his name.
He then says: “Are you coming or not?”
She repeats her request for his name and says she will report him.
She adds: “We’ll actually do it on our own because you are being very rude and aggressive. We’ve got this on camera so don’t worry.”
Speaking about the incident, Sassy told Jam Press: “I was really taken aback, very frustrated and felt the injustice.
“My biggest worry was I couldn’t safely get me and my friend to the right part of the platform to a lift and up the stairs, and she couldn’t do that for me either.
“I was trying to keep a level head and explain exactly why he needed to do his job – but he kept cutting over me and was very dismissive and indifferent.
“When he refused to give me his name badge I knew things were going from bad to worse – I knew we weren’t going to get the safest support from him.
“He used my disability as a weapon by not disclosing information that would have been readily available to a non-blind person by not giving me his name, as he was wearing a name badge but wouldn’t give us his name.
“I really did feel discriminated against because he used my disability against me, and refused to support me in the way the service offers to me as a disabled person.
“We were putting our safety in someone else’s hands and if that doesn’t go the way you hope, it makes you feel very unsafe and uncomfortable.
“We did not feel safe that day. He put us in a safety critical issue and should never have done that.
“If it had been Covid-related and he didn’t feel safe, then he didn’t then explain this to us and radio for another member of staff to assist and stay with us until then. That would have been absolutely fine.
“I’m immunocompromised so I can appreciate Covid fears – but he didn’t express any of that, so I genuinely believed he had no regard for us as disabled women wanting his support in the correct way, and when we tried to explain that to him, he was very rude to us.”
The video has been viewed over 7,000 times on Twitter so far and attracted dozens of comments.
“This persons actions put us in danger, please never do this or interact in this way with a blind person who requires your help,” Sassy captioned the tweet.
One person commented: “This is shocking! If this guy had training then it’s in how to be rude, disrespectful and totally indifferent to passengers needs!”
“This is bad! This employee clearly had no clue what sighted guiding is and should never have been sent to do that job, and is then rude to the customer when they try to explain their needs!” another user added.
Someone else said: “Shameful refusal to even try and listen and understand to these women’s needs. Can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been.”
“This is the most appalling refusal of assistance to a disabled passenger I have ever seen. In my experience, the vast majority of staff are great; this is the 1% that really don’t care. Action must be taken,” another viewer commented.
One person added: “Sorry that you had to experience this. It’s shocking that in 2022 we need to describe to someone who is trained to assist passengers what sighted guide is.”
“That’s horrendous, this can’t happen again,” agreed another user.
Someone else added: “Sometimes sighted people are ‘blinder’ than us”.
“Jesus the level of arrogance! Hopefully you’re ok,” commented one viewer.
Another person, who claims to have worked at TfL, added: “As an ex employee I find his actions were disgraceful you are trained to assist VIPs and MIPs when requested. Please don’t tarnish all staff with the same brush.”
Sassy reached out to TfL following the incident in September and was given a formal apology and told retraining would be involved – but she is sceptical any new measures have been taken.
She added: “I don’t believe that’s the case – I haven’t had the abuse since but I have still had experiences where I don’t feel safe, and I have heard many reports from visually impaired people who have had uncomfortable experiences.
“I’d like TfL staff across the board to have sighted guided training and basic disability awareness training so they feel comfortable and confident interacting with disabled people and guiding them safely.
“I don’t wasn’t this to ever happen to another disabled person again.”
Jam Press approached TfL for comment, and received the following reply from chief customer officer, Mark Evers:“I am very sorry that Ms Wyatt had this experience which fell short of our normal standards of customer service.
“Following this incident in September last year, we reached out to apologise to Ms Wyatt and reminded staff of the support they should be offering.
“Non-socially distanced sighted guiding was reintroduced in our stations in July 2021 following the end of social distancing. I would like to reassure Ms Wyatt that making travel easier for Londoners with accessibility needs is one of our top priorities.
“We have developed a new and improved accessibility awareness training programme for our operational colleagues.”
