Who should get last bus seat: Disabled man or sleeping baby?

Doug Paulley. Pictuere: Ross Parry Agency

A woman’s refusal to move a pushchair with a sleeping baby from a bay on a bus used by wheelchair passengers - causing a disabled man to have to leave the vehicle - is at the centre of a test case legal battle in the Court of Appeal.

Three appeal judges are being asked by a bus operator to decide whether wheelchair passengers should have priority over all other passengers to use the space as a matter of law.

The judges heard First Bus Group has a policy of “requesting but not requiring” non-disabled travellers, including those with babies and pushchairs, to vacate the space if it is needed by a wheelchair user.

But a judge at Leeds County Court ruled the policy was discriminatory and in breach of a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.

The ruling was made in the case of wheelchair user Doug Paulley, from Wetherby, West Yorkshire, the man denied access to the bus after the woman with the sleeping baby refused to move.

Mr Paulley, 36, won £5,500 in damages against First Group, after Recorder Paul Isaacs declared the company should have taken measures to ensure he wasn’t at a disadvantage when he tried to get on the bus.

The judge said it had been Parliament’s decision to “give protection to disabled wheelchair users and not to non-disabled mothers with buggies”. Today Martin Chamberlain QC, for First Group, appealed against that ruling.

He said it was an example of a long-running problem on public transport that had produced conflicting court decisions and bus operators were now seeking legal clarity.

Outside court, Mr Paulley described how on February 24 2012 he tried to board a number 99 bus at Wetherby to Leeds to take a train to visit his parents at Oldham. He said: “Somebody got there just before me and put a pushchair in the wheelchair space.”