Disabled boy's father accuses Cameron over 'segregation'

David Cameron was accused yesterday of seeking to segregate disabled children in the education system.

Jonathan Bartley, whose son has spina bifida, tackled him as he left a General Election campaign speech.

Mr Bartley confronted him as the Tory leader left the event in south London and voiced his concern about Tory plans to "end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools".

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He told Mr Cameron about the two-year struggle he had faced to get seven-year-old Samuel into his local mainstream school, and said the existing system was already biased against disabled children being educated alongside the able-bodied.

Mr Cameron insisted that, as the parent of a disabled child himself, he was "passionate" about helping them get the education that was right for them and would not do anything to make it more difficult for them.

But Mr Bartley, who has his wheelchair-bound son with him, said: "It is the wrong way to go. You are not representing the needs of children in mainstream education. You want to segregate disabled children."

Mr Bartley told Mr Cameron: "You are saying you want to reverse the bias towards the inclusion of children in mainstream schools. At the moment there is a bias against inclusion, not a bias for it, as your manifesto says. You talk about the broken society. It nearly broke up our family getting our son into school.

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"His two sisters go there, it's our local school, we have had to struggle for two years and in the end the Secretary of State had to intervene. There is a bias against inclusion and you are saying there's a bias for it."

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