Cons reckon able-bodied prisoners who do not need help getting about are abusing the easy availability of the chair on wheels devices for cheap laughs on wings
Outraged lags are fuming over Little Britain-style disability fakers using wheelchairs to whizz about prison landings for giggles. Cons reckon able-bodied prisoners who do not need help getting about are abusing the easy availability of the chair on wheels devices for cheap laughs on wings.
But cheesed off cons say by feigning the need for a wheelchair – like the fictional Little Britain character Andy Pipkin – fraudsters are preventing those in genuine need from using them to get about.
The dishonest behaviour was spotted at HMP Whatton, a Category C jail for 800 males sex offenders in Nottingham. Writing in prison paper Inside Time, inmate Charlie Quinto, said: “At this prison there is an issue with people abusing their disabilities to use wheelchairs.
“There are wheelchair users who don’t need to be in a wheelchair. If healthcare spent more time policing these wheelchair users, they would see that the majority of them do not need one.
“We see, on a regular basis, ‘wheelchair-bound’ people stand up, have a sneak peek around the corner to see if the landing is free, and walk to and from the bin or the food trolleys without any aid at all.
“But then someone comes out of their cell and they go back to struggling to walk.
“It makes people chuckle that these fraudsters are just playing on their disabilities.”
Mr Quinto called for prison bosses to take action against the “plastic users” he reckons should be stopped in their tracks by the implementation of “robust checks.”
He added: “Wheelchair users need to be encouraged to use their walkers to get around the prison. If they get out of breath, they can sit down on the seat of their walker and recover and then continue with their journey.
“We have seen those who struggle with their breathing, or have COPD, refuse a wheelchair because they want to continue to keep their independence, and so use walkers to get round the prison.
“Wheelchair handlers like me are frustrated with those who can physically walk around the houseblock without the aid of a wheelchair or their walkers.
“If they can do this without experiencing a medical episode, then they do not need to have a wheelchair or a walker.
“There are some genuine people who need to be in a wheelchair for medical reasons – for example, those who have lost feeling in their legs.
“You see some of them pushing themselves around the prison without a wheelchair handler.
“There are also those who have been witnessed by others to misuse their walkers by lifting the walker above their head when wheelchairs need to pass them.
“Wheelchair handlers are frustrated that these plastic users continue to get away with misusing their walkers, as well as bragging to others that they don’t actually need their walkers and can walk perfectly fine without them.
“There needs to be routine, robust checks carried out by prison officers and healthcare workers to ensure that the fraudsters are removed off their walkers if they continue to misuse them.”
Earlier this year Inside Time reported a wheelchair user who was held in a women’s prison a week past her release date and then discharged in the dark without support was awarded £14,000 in compensation.