Beauty and the beast of disablism

By Katharine Quarmby

A beauty salon, Visage Hair and Beauty, in Southall, West London, has settled a disability discrimination suit with three disabled teenagers.

Amy Fox, Aruna Gill and Jemimah Kumba, (the latter two of whom are wheelchair users), wanted to get their nails painted.

A female employee is said to have told the girls: “This is my shop. There isn’t enough room for the pushchairs.”

Shortly before the incident their support worker had checked that the teenagers could be served but when they arrived, the girls said that they were “shooed away”.

Amy Fox, who has learning difficulties, commented that all three friends had been extremely upset by what happened. She said: “My two friends are in wheelchairs, but I’m not, and they wouldn’t serve us…I thought it was very unfair and it was not very nice of them to do that to us.”

Their solicitor, Claire Dawson, commented: “The girls just wanted to be treated like ordinary teenagers, and it is a sad reflection on our society that prejudice got in the way. They were treated in an appalling manner and I hope that by successfully taking action, other disabled people who have suffered discrimination realise that they are not alone and the law is there to protect them.”

Richard Parnell, from Scope, commented: “This was an appalling and totally unacceptable example of disability discrimination which was severely upsetting for all three women. Disabled people are entitled to the same treatment as everyone else and it is important that those who do suffer this sort of treatment have the courage to speak out. I am delighted that in this case justice has been done.”

The beauty salon owner, Parmail Kaur, denied the allegation that the teenagers were turned away because they were disabled, but settled out of court, paying the teenagers £4,500 in compensation. She said: “It was a health and safety issue. The person doing the nails can only do one person at a time and our shop is very small and they didn’t have an appointment. They are angry but it is all a misunderstanding. I was not there, so I feel bad.”

She added that she had settled out of court, because she would never hurt disabled people and that the salon regretted the issue.