Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

A deaf woman has won compensation after the Government failed to provide sign language interpreters for two of the covid briefings, leading her to feel frustrated and discriminated against.

The Government had tried to defend itself by arguing that subtitles were available for deaf people. Such a disappointing stereotypical attitude is a further discriminatory act in itself.

Organisations are required to make 'reasonable adjustments' for disabled people under the Equality Act.

Good for her I say, discrimination based upon disability is all too often treated less seriously than it is for other disadvantaged minority groups.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.tel...lack-sign/amp/

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It is hardly a big deal and as they said there were subs. What is wrong with her reading? crazy that she won this imo

---------- Post added at 14:37 ---------- Previous post was at 14:36 ----------

if they had subs then they were accessible

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Probably had a building full of (free*) solicitors fighting her undoubtedly true and honest assertion of the facts ;)

I wonder if she has to pay tax on her compensation?


*for her, but someone surely pays

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

BSL and English are two different languages. For some deaf people, English is their second language.

https://dwpdigital.blog.gov.uk/2016/...cond-language/

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

She has dyslexia.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Just someone just out to make money again.

Funny how the "stress" of a court case had no effect whatsover.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Yay I won a £10 bet on who would start a thread on this (non) story :)

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

170 briefings and 2 were found to have breached the rules, with luck compensation will be limited

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Maybe the person who normally did the signing had cramp?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It is a big deal. This was one of the most important issues that we have faced in our lifetime, yet the Government didn't deem those with hearing difficulties important enough to be kept informed like everyone else.

---------- Post added at 16:16 ---------- Previous post was at 16:13 ----------

I doubt it, it was more likely done to advance the consideration of deaf people and the application of existing laws designed to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

---------- Post added at 16:18 ---------- Previous post was at 16:16 ----------

This is two too many. Every briefing was accessible to the hearing community, so this should also be the case for whose hearing is impaired.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

There's a lot of channels on VM that don't have subtitles which means I can't watch them. Not the end of the world is it.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Possibly with all the jerking movements they had to do every time handcock or Johnston spoke....

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Or, they made a mistake, whilst I can understand them being rapped over the knuckles and told to ensure that the mistake isn't repeated.

Compensation? Seriously? For what?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

maybe so but unless they get to buy every single magazine or book with a video of someone reading it to them in BSL then it does not really hold water

---------- Post added at 16:30 ---------- Previous post was at 16:30 ----------

this holds more water than the last reply but still come on...

---------- Post added at 16:31 ---------- Previous post was at 16:30 ----------

or Covid

---------- Post added at 16:32 ---------- Previous post was at 16:31 ----------

Oh excuse them while dealing with the most important issues of our time for not thinking of those millions of deaf people who happen to have dyslexia also

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Does this mean we're going to have even more people in the corner of the screen madly gesticulating. They drive me crazy. :rolleyes:

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Obviously intelligent and confident . . . wonder what made her turn into a weirdo?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It's been an issue for the deaf community since the start of the briefings in England

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-52323854
And it's not an issue in the rest of the UK, they've been able to do it from pretty much day 1:

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

That sentence is of course massively subjective and completely unquantifiable.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

From your quote, unable to access crucial information? As in, there were no other sources for her to obtain the information? It's not as if most of it wasn't leaked to the media ahead of time in order to gain public perception.

US comp culture at it's finest.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Let's hope it's not money or she might end up disappointed, with luck

And we need to ensure that doesn't take root, money doesn't make things better necessarily, one of my eyes is macular off at the moment due to botched surgery, the first thing several people have said is sue but the finest eye hospital in the world will hopefully fix me on Friday and if they do legal action won't even be a consideration for me

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

By and large we won’t ever get a version of “US Compensation Culture”. Our laws on such things are thankfully quite different and much harder to abuse.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I'm thinking of joining Facebook & Twitter, then hope someone calls me old and fat.

Bound to hurt my delicate feelings, destroy my confidence, and make me ashamed to leave the house.

I can see the money rolling in now ;)

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

If she gets any money for this "distress" how long before we start seeing adverts" Deaf? Unable to get information due to no BSL signing on 2 occasions? Phone BSLcash4U".

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Moorbridge ?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Well, the odds are high*… ;)




*if you use a picture of me

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Substitute fields for a bridge?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

:tu:

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Ah yes my mistake ! I’m sure you’ll receive the absolute best of care

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

What complete bullshite. :td:

First of all this was just 2 times out of 150 or more.
Secondly, it almost certainly had subtitles.
Thirdly, the information was always made available elsewhere.
Also, she could simply have asked someone.

Oh, and what "crucial " information was in these specific instances that she could not possibly find out some other way :confused:

My daughter was pregnant during the pandemic, and didnt watch any daily beiefings, yet somehow she managed without all this "crucial" information. :erm:

Ridiculous claim culture. :dozey:

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Deaf people were fully entitled to be told what was being said at all these briefings.

It's already been explained why the provision of subtitles was inadequate.

This has been confirmed by the judiciary. Ironically, the very same Government published this the other day too as part of their levelling up to make things fairer for disabled people in general:

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ility-strategy

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

IIRC some of the briefings were Q&A type ones. Not really suitable for sign language as they were non-scripted discussions between multiple people.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Compensation in situations like this is awarded based on “loss”, for example an injury claim would be based on loss of amenity, loss of comfort etc as well as suffering.

She missed out on 2 out of 150 briefings.

I’m not exactly sure what she lost out on there that affected her life to a great extent.

People need to keep a sense of perspective.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

:tu:

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Compensation is limited in the county court anyway iirc

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Question is how much was a daily Boris briefing worth ? I'd go as high as 70p.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Good signers can do marvellous things - we have signers at meeting when needed who can sign songs (Usually closer to SSE - sign supported English - than BSL) and the sermons where they may have some notes but things can change quickly.


While I agree signing should have been there, as others have already commented there was always some form of alternative (subtitles) and it didn't happen every time. Further a better broadcasters could add signing to their non-live broadcasts so it would only be the live situation where it would have been missed.


Given a "must do better" certainly but compensation for something hard to quantify like "stress" is something else altogether.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Agreed. Maybe there were two great ones though and these were the two great ones!

I think the decision is more there to make a point and act as a deterrent - legislation says you need to do this, you didn't do it so it will cost you. I suspect legal costs will be greater than any compensation.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

How many of the 148 other briefings did she even try to watch?:rolleyes:

Briefings were live, sometimes with more than one person talking which makes live signing a lot more difficult, if not impossible, because of the need to correctly attribute who said what. Live signing has errors, and the briefings had to be accurate.

Big announcements such as lockdowns and rule changes are not briefings and would've been signed. The content of the announcements were on the government website and widely reported by the media.Do Parliamentary debates and Select Committees have signing?


Any important information that was in the briefings would've been available elsewhere.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Having skimmed through (I believe) the pdf file of the application or initial hearing, I'm in agreement that costs will probably far exceed compensation.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/...net-Office.pdf

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

All the Scottish briefings include live signing including for the Q&A sections as far as I know.

In the US, most government press conferences include signing, which would also cover any press questions.

And I'm also pretty sure that the BBC interpreters sign the some of the main News broadcasts including live unscripted interviews.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

When you're dealing with what might be complicated matters such as trends in infections, signing would not be easy or accurate. Try watching a few events that are subtitled live and see the number of errors. Most of them are obvious at the time, because of the limited context, eg football match.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Subtitles are another story as most companies use AI software for them. You may have a human watching to correct any errors but that cuses a lapse in the subtitles.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Yes, it always has been that way.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Exactly, yet people are focusing on their resentment that she will be awarded compensation, which is likely to be trivial.

The rights of disabled people to be able to participate in everyday life wherever possible is the main thing at play here.

The fact that it was the Government who did this and then tried to dismiss her complaint by stereotypically saying that she could have used the subtitles is what makes this case much worse.

Not all deaf people are able to use subtitles, which is why signing is used.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Had she just gone after an apology, I don't think there would be anywhere near as much push back, but as she wanted a “declaration of unlawfulness” and compensation for “injury to feelings”.


injury to feelings? Was the government in the wrong? They were.

Were her feelings hurt? i highly doubt she rocked back & forth in chair, eyes raised to the heavens crying 'Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?' over and over again.


Then, here come the 'ambulance chasers'

'with Lawyers representing her say she should receive several thousand pounds - and stressed the case has implications for other deaf people.'

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Man if I took everyone to court who has done something that has caused me upset I would be a millionaire by now hahaha

Although saying that I would likely have lost it all in cases against me

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Anything that encourages people to treat others with respect, decency, empathy and kindness can only be a good thing.

I have successfully received compensation for both myself and disability charities (an offer was also made to help Cableforum members facing hardship) for disability discrimination and the resultant injury to feelings from a company. I didn't have to follow through with legal action as an out of court settlement was reached

Money is the only language that most businesses understand these days.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I think that was for the rest of the UK to try to decipher what Wee Krankie was saying. Why was the rest of the UK subjected to her rambling on-and-on for many weeks?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

This, sometimes you just have to 'Suck it up Buttercup'

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I have no intention of sucking anything up, just as this lady doesn't and the law agrees with us.

You are free to do nothing if someone insults or discriminates against you unlawfully and that is your right too. Nobody is obligated to utilise the rights afforded to them.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

With all due respect to those with disabilities this case does smack of ambulance chasing rather than righting a wrong.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

So did the law discriminate against her because she's deaf or because she's dyslexic ? Because had she not been dyslexic this wouldn't have been an issue, surely ?

---------- Post added at 17:31 ---------- Previous post was at 17:31 ----------


^^ That

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

To me, it's slowly happening that as a Single White able-bodied Male that I will be slowly discriminated against, and yet I will not be able to do anything about it.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I'm not sure why you would think that you wouldn't be able to do anything about being discriminated against because you are white and/or male. If you believe that you have been discriminated against, harassed etc because of the colour of your skin or your sex, legislation is there to protect you.

I am not aware of any legislation designed to specifically protect single or able bodied people, but it's highly unlikely that you would face any problems because of this.

I've never known people in relationships chasing single people down the street or physically disabled people attacking people for not having a physical disability!!!

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Crikey . . isn't that discrimination?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It causes single people to feel frustrated and discriminated against.

---------- Post added at 20:48 ---------- Previous post was at 20:44 ----------

Try getting caught having an affair with someone else's wife ;)

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

How come I get the feeling this forum is full of old white cable nerds * , who reckon things being equal means they are being discriminated against ...


* includes me

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I still chuckle at all the women where I worked wanting equality, they soon started moaning when they couldn't retire until 65 :D

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

or even longer, 67 for me, and my wife.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

People with vision problems are now complaining. Rightly so.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58013982

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I didn't but then I had known for 10 years I wouldn't be retiring at 60 because of the announcement of a cusp period of 5 years for women approaching 60 born between 1950/1955. Eventually I retired at 63.Luckily that ruling didn't apply to my teacher's pension.

Those that were moaning hadn't paid any attention to the original announcement because they weren't looking that far ahead in their working career I presume.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

:D :D :D

---------- Post added at 14:20 ---------- Previous post was at 14:14 ----------

The Ombudsman has agreed that the Government was guilty of maladministration in failing to adequately let women know about this forthcoming change:

https://www.waspi.co.uk/2021/07/20/u...mbudsman-phso/

---------- Post added at 14:27 ---------- Previous post was at 14:20 ----------

Wow, that is bad. A lot of the time disability discrimination isn't borne out of malice, but is because of thoughtlessness, ignorance and a lack of education about disability issues.

Most people are horrified to learn what the affect of their behaviour, policies etc has on those less fortunate than themselves and are only too happy to take the time to improve as well as learn from their mistakes.

It's usually the arrogant "I'll do as I please" crowd that ends up in court.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

So how come I knew about it? It was freely available and was reported at the time. If I knew why didn’t anyone else know?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Pot, kettle, black

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Why have you started making snide comments to my posts again after a long period of being OK?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Perhaps he feels you have the same attitude? He’s allowed his opinion just as you are.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

There's been three in succession though, it just seems odd as he's been supportive of my needs as a disabled person in the past. Different opinions are fine, it's the reason why he's saying this that I want to find out ie what's prompted this change in attitude.

Neuro diverse people also need clarification as opposed to hints, sarcasm, speaking in riddles etc.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Again, maybe he just disagrees with you or thinks you’re wrong. Both valid and allowed opinions.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

But I'm not sure what, if anything, he disagrees with.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It may not be a disagreement, perhaps he feels you have a very condescending tone with anyone who doesn’t share your views.

Whatever it is he’s entitled to feel that way without question.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Hopefully he will post what all this is about. I acknowledge that the way that I express myself is likely to be impacted by my disability, as is the case with all neuro diverse people.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I think that their grievance is that the Government didn't publicise this change widely enough as opposed to not at all. Their argument is strengthened after this decision from the Ombudsman, but I doubt that the Government will change their mind over this because they are trillions in debt as it is.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Ombudsman finding.

https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/complai...te-pension-age

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

It's the 'failure to communicate' the change that the Ombudsman has found to be a case of maladministration.

It's this that can give rise to financial compensation as opposed to awarding them the pension payments that they seek, but maybe the amounts involved will be similar??

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

If you read the finding, it’s quoting (maybe) £500-£950.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I cannot understand why I and my colleagues at the time knew and understood this change way back when I was actually teaching BEFORE I retired. If I knew, how was there a failure to communicate?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

If they didn't communicate this enough, maybe the limited publicity that they did do happened to reach you. Can you remember how you found out?

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

I'm going to guess here - because I can't honestly remember - that there would have been some mention of it on news programs or in the papers?

Maybe the Govt. should make sure that any future changes to 'anything at all' are clearly mentioned using 5 minute adverts every hour on TV (for a month), printed on the front page of every daily newspaper for a month (in easy to read format and 27 languages), and splashed all over every Facebook account for a full week.

They could also make it a legislation that all businesses with at least one employee display posters in prominent places, taxis & buses carry the information displayed on at least 2 sides, stickers are placed on all dustbins, and all organisations dealing with the disabled (of whatever severity) ensure all their 'clients' have been fully briefed on the forthcoming changes.

Sadly there will still be some who claim it's not their fault that they had no idea.

Re: Deaf woman wins compensation over covid briefings.
 

Every briefing was usually repeated on the actual new following these briefing usually not long afterwards. Also subtitles and available online to read the info.

Uts shocking really that this involves only two briefings not being signed out of the hundreds that took place.