Last night we watched a repeat of the Channel 4 documentary “One Killer Punch“, which examined the phenomenon of a one punch kill.  It was very emotive and as the mother of two young adult males, I feel devastated for the four families torn apart in the first and last cases shown.  Difficult to watch and I am sure extremely hard to make, there have been calls for it to be shown in all secondary schools. Everyone will have a different and personal opinion whilst watching these young men and the families speak on film and this is in no way meant to belittle a heartbreaking subject.

Rather I want to highlight the other case which all hinged upon the right to use a disabled parking bay.  I know that this is another emotive subject that those of us on “spoonie” social media will see discussed time and time again.  How many times is someone judged from the way they look as to whether they are worthy of that bay?

In this heartbreaking incident, a man died because another judged that he was not in need of this parking space in a supermarket car park.  The attacker saw a gentleman walking out to place some goods in his car and, because he wanted the spot for himself and his disabled wife and he deemed the other unworthy of parking there, he got out of his car and hit the gentleman.  He didn’t stop to notice the blue badge sitting on the dashboard, or the name on it that showed it belonged to the gent’s wife.  He didn’t wait to hear that the lady was still in the store and suffers with rheumatoid arthritis.  Instead with one punch he floored a stranger and then calmly got back into his vehicle when he “heard his head crack on the ground” and drove home.

Several hours later a distraught family had to make the decision to turn off life support and another family suffers as a member is sent to jail.  What a senseless waste of a life.

I know that there are some people out there who use relatives blue badges/disabled permits illegally, but I would like to think that they are in the minority.  In the UK being issued with a blue badge is no easy task now, and I’m sure that it is equally difficult elsewhere. I would  like to say to everyone please don’t be too quick to judge someone who doesn’t look “disabled” using a disabled parking bay – we are all different and our needs can vary from minute to minute.  Believe me, I would rather be skipping the length of the high street than needing to use a stick and wheelchair to enable me to park closer to that shop!

Another post with some similar blue badge stories can be found here: https://wheelchairvista.life/2013/12/14/murder-over-a-blue-badge-bay/