Interview: That’s my boy: how paralysed mother proved experts wrong

Bursting into the house with rosy, wind-whipped cheeks and an excitable spaniel barking at his heels, Peter Roberts shouts a loud “Hiya mum”.

He rang her 10 minutes earlier while out walking the dog to ask if our photographer had arrived before wondering whether he should change into some fresh jeans.

The lively 12-year-old, who loves a chat, turns out to be thoughtful with impeccable manners. He is proof that parenting isn’t impaired by paralysis and doesn’t suffer because it relies on a wheelchair and the help of carers.

To corroborate this, Peter has just been judged an outstanding family member by Regain, the charity dedicated to improving the independence of those who have become tetraplegic. He was nominated by mum Penny, who was paralysed from the chest down in a skydiving accident in Florida 16 years ago.

Whether he would have been so outstanding, happy and loved had social workers had their way, we’ll never know – and Penny never stops thanking God for that.

Her pregnancy was a wonderful surprise. Her smashed pelvis and internal injuries had led her to believe she could never have children. But when she split with her fiancé three months into the pregnancy, social services revealed they wanted to take her baby away at birth and place him with foster parents.

They argued that Penny’s home would replicate institutional care and claimed the child would be confused and have attachment issues if he and his mother were looked after by a succession of carers. They predicted that she wouldn’t cope as a single mum, not least because her relatives lived miles away in the Midlands. But just four days before the birth, a court decided she should have the chance to care for her own son.

“It was incredibly stressful. They’d decided I was just a vegetable in the wheelchair, too disabled to look after a child,” she says.

Social services should’ve known not to underestimate what Penny, 48, calls her “pig stubborn streak”. The former nurse had already fought and won a battle for life when doctors tending her multiple injuries gave her up for dead. And she also later she defied attempts to put her in a nursing home, returning instead to her terraced house in Silsden.

She was confined to the front room until the property was adapted and was forced to contend with an ever-changing team of agency staff until she became one of the first people in Britain to manage her own care with the help of direct payments from the council. Friends, including Peter’s godmother Margaret, were an enormous support when she brought her baby home and they helped her show that disability was no barrier to a successful mother/child relationship.

She breastfed Peter for nine months and, as a toddler, he took rides on her wheelchair and Penny soon realised what she could and couldn’t do. His presence made her stronger and more determined.

“The first few months were really hard but it got easier especially when I got direct payments and was able to hire and train my own staff,” she says.

“Playing with Peter was a great a form of physiotherapy and a strong incentive to keep going. He is my biggest inspiration.”

She now has slightly more movement in her arms, although none in her legs, but after yet another court battle she has weekly physiotherapy sessions to strengthen her body.

“I applied to include physiotherapy in my direct payment and I had to go to court to get it but it is fantastic. I haven’t had a hospital admission for chest infections since and I don’t take drugs for the pain now. Those problems were brought on by being in a wheelchair and not moving.”

Her disability hasn’t stopped her undertaking a number of challenges including parachute jumps and charity cycle rides with a hand-propelled bike across Africa and Egypt. She has also learned to drive in a specially-adapted van she calls her “Thunderbirds vehicle”. It is an automatic with a ramp to get her wheelchair from the road to the driver’s seat, and boasts a hand-operated brake, while she blows through a straw to work the indicators and headlights.

Her own battles prompted her to start her own business, Body and Soul Assistance, organising care packages for other disabled people.

Concerns that Peter might have “attachment” issues thanks to the rota of carers who are at the Roberts’ home 24/7, have been banished and it’s clear the staff have enhanced their lives and prevented the possibility of Penny and Peter becoming isolated.

“We’ve had people working for me from all over Britain, from Spain, Pakistan, Columbia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and it’s been brilliant meeting them. It means Peter accepts people and has no concept of prejudice. Having them in our lives has been positive,” says Penny, who is a hands-on mum. She helps Peter with homework, takes him to parties and riding lessons and even goes for “walks” with him in her all-terrain wheelchair. She also indulges Peter’s love of animals and the bungalow they moved to eight years ago is now home to a snake, rabbits, gerbils, fish and two cocker spaniels.

“We have a normal family life except we have one person in around the clock to care for me,” she says.

Although Peter quite clearly isn’t her carer, he does help her fetch and carry, and he was recently commended for using first-aid skills learned at primary school to stop her choking.

“He could’ve shouted for the carer, but he slapped me on the back calmly just as he was taught and out flew the raisin that was stuck. I’m really proud of him,” says Penny, who is a member of the Government’s advisory group, National Voices.

She met the Prime Minister through NV recently and he was understandably impressed when she told him that she managed her own care budget and revealed how much that control had improved her quality of life. “He got very excited about it and said he thought that was the way forward,” she says.

Of course, David Cameron doesn’t know the half of her remarkable story. Peter does but he is as blasé as any adolescent is about their parent’s achievements. “He’s never known me able-bodied, so there’s no big deal,” says Penny. “To him I’m just mum.”

A HELPING HAND FOR BRAVE BEL

Penny Roberts and her son and Peter are lending support to the parents of nine-year-old Harrogate girl Bel Young, who was paralysed from the neck down after falling from a climbing frame in July last year.

Bel recently came home from the intensive care unit, but relies on a ventilator to breathe. The Being Bel Trust has been established to raise funds for rehabilitation equipment to improve her quality of life and to help fund neurological physiotherapy that may help Bel gain more mobility.

There is a collection box in Dacre, Son and Hartley estate agents in Harrogate or you can send cheques payable to the Being Bel Trust to Dinmore House, Burnt Yates, Harrogate, HG3 3ET. Tel: 07796 695666