This is an interesting read, I wasn’t aware that “public service” included entertainment. A new niche for BSL interpreters?

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Last year, Cate’s mum Sally Reynolds bought six tickets to see the band Little Mix in concert on 1 September at the South of England Event Centre in Sussex.

Sally is deaf and booked for herself and two deaf friends to go with their daughters who are all able to hear.

In order that she and her two friends could fully access the performance, Sally asked the organisers, LHG Live, to provide a British Sign Language interpreter.

She was initially offered carer tickets and told that she could bring her own interpreter, but she didn’t consider that met her needs or amounted to full access.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Sally explained: “We asked two or three times, please can you provide the interpreter for us, and the explanation we got back was just a ‘no’.

“It didn’t have any reason behind it and eventually we became so frustrated.

“I wanted to share the same experience my daughter had – essentially I just wanted access to the songs.”

Under the Equality Act 2010, any organisation supplying a service to the public is under a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that a disabled person’s experience is as close as possible to that of someone without a disability.

With just days to go before the concert, and no interpreter in place, Sally took an unprecedented legal step.

She decided to instruct lawyers to apply for a court injunction to force LHG Live to provide a British Sign Language interpreter.

It worked. Hours before the hearing was due to take place, LHG Live agreed.

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