Welcome! I sense that we are now heading back to something like normal as the snow thaws and temperatures return to the seasonal average!
I’ve just spent two weeks without my car! What really annoys me about this is the fact that today’s reliance on technology, seems to remove good old common sense! Whenever the technician (!) plugged the car into the all knowing computer it returned a fault that nobody had seen before! I say bring back mechanics in blue overalls with grease under their fingernails and Biro stains above their top pocket? It turned out that the problem was a blocked exhaust system which I suspect could have been rectified inside a couple of hours had the diagnosis been right. Here comes the good news! I had to take my car to a specialist exhaust fitter called Top Gear (no relation to the BBC) based in Aylesbury. On arrival I was pleasantly surprised to see a wheelchair accessible ramp and wide door and on entering was greeted by the owner, who like me was a wheelchair user! Sadly this was an extraordinary moment as I’ve only been served by wheelchair user once before! Anyway enough of this motoring mumble there have been a number of more important and interesting stories in the last week the best of which I’ve posted below. I hope you find them useful.
The government has refused to explain its failure to fulfil a long-standing promise to reconsider the ban on people with mental health conditions serving on juries.
Under the Juries Act, anyone receiving treatment for a mental health condition from a medical practitioner cannot sit on a jury.
The government promised in 2004 to launch a consultation on removing the ban, but has so far failed to act.
Since the pledge, an estimated 50,000 people have been barred from jury service.
The mental health charity Rethink this week launched a campaign to pressure the government to keep its promise. It wants the blanket ban replaced by a simple test of a person’s capacity.
It comes only weeks after the government launched its New Horizons mental health strategy, with a major focus on tackling the stigma around mental illness, including plans for a ministerial summit meeting on the issue.
In a letter to justice secretary Jack Straw, Jenkins says the law “blatantly discriminates against people affected by mental illness”.
He says the quality of justice would be improved if juries included people with direct experience of mental illness, as mental health awareness in the court system is often poor.
Writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry, who has bipolar disorder, backed the campaign, and said such exclusion was “unfair and discriminatory, and eliminates a whole tranche of law-abiding, competent individuals who should be entitled to play their part in the justice system”. The Criminal Bar Association also backed the campaign. Paul Mendelle, chair of the association, said juries should “represent a cross-section of society” and that a blanket ban “seems inappropriate”.
But a Ministry of Justice spokesman said that “any change would need to strengthen our jury system” and “there can be no question of changing the law to allow people to serve as jurors where their ability to do so is in doubt”.
He said about two per cent of people are excluded from jury service because they are receiving mental health treatment, and the government continued to “keep the position under review”.
But he declined to explain why there should not be a capacity test rather than a ban, or how the government justified a ban in the wake of its New Horizons strategy.
Baroness Thornton, for the government, said she felt “humbled” and “ashamed” that the government and other public bodies were still struggling to provide accessible information, but suggested the emphasis should be on compliance with existing implied legal duties. But she said the government would examine Lord Low’s amendments to see if it could come up with a way of improving access to information through the bill.
A new scheme will help disabled entrepreneurs expand their businesses, and challenge potential investors to see past negative stereotypes.
Enabled4Growth (E4G) hopes to offer free business support to 700 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across London, helping many of them to secure the funding they need from investors.
The programme, being run by Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) and part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, aims to help disabled entrepreneurs bring in more than £1.6 million in investment funding over the next three years.
Disabled-led businesses in the capital will be given the support they need to become ready for investment, and then brought together with investors at “brokerage” events to pitch for finance.
LCD will also use these brokerage events to provide disability awareness training for investors, with the long-term aim of trying to level the playing field for other disabled entrepreneurs seeking business finance from banks, private investors and grant-making bodies.
Disabled entrepreneur Amar Latif, who runs Traveleyes, which provides holidays for visually-impaired travellers, said: “It was a real hurdle to get people to take me seriously. I was this blind guy who runs a travel business asking for a loan to expand.
Kevin Davey, E4G’s senior business advisor, said much of the investment sector finds it difficult to spot good opportunities when confronted with businesses led by disabled entrepreneurs.
He said he hoped the training for investors would help them to “spot a disabled winner”, and he added: “Over the last decade there are many examples of high growth SMEs led by disabled entrepreneurs.
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