From Carly Fleischmann’s Facebook page:

Dear American airlines, I have been on an airplane over 26 times in my life. I’ve never had a problem being on the airplane before. However on my way back from LA this year I was met up with the challenge. I am nonverbal however I communicate using my iPad and my computer. Every time I have ever traveled I’ve always been allowed to keep my iPad on my lap before takeoff and juring landing. My iPad to me is like a voice. Can you imagine being on the airplane and benign asked not to talk for over 25 minutes. When the flight attendants comes around to tell people to turn off all electronic devices it then takes the airplane a while to taxi to the take off strip. I’d like to add at this point that it’s statistically proven that 45% of all plane malfunctions are spotted by passengers and not the pilots. Imagine I heard something or saw something and I was unable to comment or say that something was wrong. You are not just putting me in danger by not letting me use an iPad you are putting the whole plane in danger. Also a lot of times any self injuries or problems with the passengers are caused during takeoff and landing. If I’m not able to tell anybody that I’m hurt or injured because I don’t have a voice I am in trouble. I am stating all this because on my plane flight back to Toronto. I was asked by the stewardess to turn off my iPad and put it away. When my add told her that I needed it to communicate she started fighting with us. It was not until the captain got involved and agreed that this was a crucial thing for me that I was allowed to keep my iPad. The flight intended still insisted that I put it in front of my seat out of my reach. I was watching the stewardess on the flight the whole trip. She did not stop talking. Imagine asking her not to talk for over 50 minutes. Do you really think she can do it? After watching her I don’t think she could. She stated to me that it was the policy of the airlines that i couldn’t have my iPad and that with all her years of flying that she’s never seen or heard anybody using an iPad to communicate before. But the captain agreed that this is a crucial thing for me. I spoke with the captain during customs and he said that there was no reason why shouldn’t be allowed my iPad. Your policies and procedures need to be changed when it comes to people traveling with autism. I think it’s something for you guys to take a look at. More people with autism are traveling with iPads and small computers. It’s crucial that their voice be heard and that they’re able to express themselves the same way other passengers can. Like I said before this is the only airlines I’ve ever flown that I’ve had trouble with. All other airlines have agreed that this is a crucial thing for someone with autism. With Wi-Fi and other technology out on airplanes. No stewardess or captain should be complaining about someone with autism using the iPad to communicate. The only answer this airline stewardess could give me was that it was against American airlines policy to have my iPad out. But I’m not like any other passenger. I have autism and my iPad acts as a augmentative devices that allows me to communicate and be heard. I use my iPad during security to ask for further instructions, I use my iPad well waiting for my airplane and ask the reception people when the flights going to take off, I use my iPad on the airplane to tell them if there’s something wrong with my seat or my seatbelt or with the airplane. I am begging you as a active passenger on your flights to change your policy when it comes to dealing with people with autism and other special needs. Its time for you to move with the times and understand that a iPad is not just for fun it’s for people who really need it too. I would love the opportunity and chance to speak to you and your employees and teach you all about autism and special things you can you do for people traveling with autism. There are more people now in days traveling with autism than ever before. I think it’s time that your Airline and your policies change with the times. Don’t you? For everyone reading this please express your comments and your concerns. I want to hear what you think?

Thanks to Matthew Smith for the info.

All I have to say to the flight attendant is that there is a reason she has never seen such a thing before. There are very few disabled adults who are non verbal and can afford an Ipad. Most people who fly with Ipads are not non verbal. But there is a first time for everything.

Nicky Clark has written a piece for today’s Independent about how Nazi treatment of disabled people is being ignored today.

I studied the Holocaust in history lessons as a teenager, and I can’t remember being taught any of this. Though I do remember my teacher telling me I would have been sent straight to the gas chambers because I couldn’t have done any physical work. I wasn’t surprised, but I wish she had told us even a sentence of everything I’ve learnt since about disablity during the Holocaust.

Were they really busy, or was she last on the list because she was disabled? I’m just shocked by this.

A 12-year-old disabled girl may have died more than four hours before staff at a Greater Manchester hospital noticed her, an inquest has heard.

Emma Stones, who had cerebral palsy, died of blood poisoning after being admitted to Tameside General Hospital in February 2011 with flu symptoms.

A coroner ruled her death followed a catalogue of errors by medical staff who provided “inadequate” care.

Stockport coroner John Pollard recorded a narrative verdict.

The inquest, at Stockport Coroner’s Court, heard that staff failed to monitor Emma properly, skipped important checks and did not maintain her medical notes properly because they were “busy”.

‘Ice cold’

When her father, Michael Stones, arrived at the hospital at 08:30 GMT on the morning after her admission, he was told she had only just died.

But her body was “ice cold”, showing signs of rigor mortis, and she may have been dead for more than four hours, Mr Pollard said.

Mr Pollard recorded a narrative verdict that Emma died of septicaemia but said it was likely that she would have survived were it not for the “inadequate” treatment she received.

He said her parents had endured a “long and painful experience”.

Mr Stones and Emma’s mother, Tracy Futcher, of Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, said they were considering legal action.

‘Heartfelt sympathies’

“I’m disgusted and appalled by it. It beggars belief and lessons have to be learned from it,” Mr Stones said.

Tariq Mahmood, Tameside Hospital’s medical director, said: “Emma was a regular patient in our children’s unit and we knew her family well.

“We would like to send our heartfelt sympathies to them during this difficult time.

“This has been a lengthy and thorough investigation by the coroner which we have fully supported and we accept his findings today.

“We acknowledge that the standard of care which we gave Emma was not acceptable and there were errors of judgment by individual members of staff. We have apologised to Emma’s family for this failure.”

In recent years, a severely under-reported element of learning disability hate crime has been identified as so-called “mate crime”. It can include physical abuse, torture and even murder.

Steven Hoskin had learning disabilities and endured months of abuse from people he believed to be his friends.

He was tortured and taken to a viaduct where he was forced to hang by his fingers from railings. His hands were then stamped on causing him to fall 100ft (30m) to his death in 2006.

Steven was a victim of what is now being called “mate crime”, a type of hate crime where perpetrators befriend vulnerable people with learning disabilities and exploit them.

The scale of abuse is broad, and can include having food or taxis paid for to “cuckooing”, when abusers use their victim’s homes as their own.

Or, as in Steven’s case, the abuse can be lethal.

‘Tuesday friends’

An organisation was so worried about the instances of mate crime that it started a campaign to highlight the problem.

The Association for Real Change (ARC UK) launched its Safety Net campaign in 2009, running for three years.

Rod Landman, ARC UK regional development officer, says that financial abuse is typical of mate crime.

A couple of years ago he met a group of young people with Asperger’s who talked about their “Tuesday friends”.

“Tuesday is the day that their benefits get paid and so a particular group of people would turn up and help them to the cash point, help them to the pub and help them spend all their money.

“Then they don’t see them again for another week,” Mr Landman adds.

The organisation supports providers of services to people with a learning disability, but the funding for the Safety Net campaign has now come to an end.

ARC UK is concerned that, without a sustained national campaign, more vulnerable adults will be abused by people pretending to be their friends.

Identifying and tackling mate crime is complicated. Victims often do not understand what is happening to them or are too afraid to tell anyone.

ARC UK also points out that people with learning disabilities often find it hard to make friendships of any sort.

When it comes to abusive friendships, they can often feel “any friend is better than no friend at all”.

Living in isolation

Mr Landman says that from his experience around 99.9% of learning disability mate crime goes unreported.

One of the key points of the Mental Capacity Act states “every adult has the right to make his or her own decisions and must be assumed to have capacity to make them unless it is proved otherwise”.

This includes bad decisions as well as good decisions.

Living in isolation can make people more vulnerable to these “fake friends” – it is believed that it goes on unnoticed more in rural areas.

Stephen Brookes from the Disability Hate Crime Network points to figures from Cumbria.

In 2011, there were only four reports of disability hate crime and one prosecution in the county, while there more than 900 prosecutions in all across England and Wales.

Mr Brookes says that in rural areas people do not know how to report these crimes and there is not enough support.

“There’s a big gap in what to do next. Urban areas are getting increasingly good support whilst rural areas are falling into a black hole,” he says.

While charities like Mencap campaign on more general hate crime, funding for work on mate crime at a national level has evaporated.

ARC UK is now calling for further funding specifically to tackle mate crime, with particular focus on fake friends on the internet.

Mr Landman’s attention was recently brought to the case of a woman who was sending money to a person who had “befriended” her online.

“The only reason that the people who provide services for her found out about this was because she had gone on to start undressing for him in front of her webcam.”

As social media takes off, the internet is becoming the new place for mate crime to be acted out.

When it comes to tackling this hidden form of abuse, Mr Landman believes we are only just scratching the surface.

You can listen again to the You & Yours episode covering mate crime here. Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme is broadcast every weekday at at 12 noon (11:00 GMT).

After the beautiful display that was the Olympic opening ceremony yesterday, what a shame we have to wake up to this. I’m shocked.

A couple who fraudulently claimed more than £130,000 in disability benefits have been jailed after they were pictured scuba-diving abroad.

Rose Jones, 53, from Ramsgate in Kent, was jailed for 15 months after being convicted last month of 12 charges at Canterbury Crown Court.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said she had told them she was too disabled to open a bottle of wine.

Her former husband, Reginald Jones, 54, of Dover, was jailed for 18 months.

The ex-paratrooper was convicted of four charges of obtaining money transfer by deception, one of furnishing false information and two of dishonestly making false representation.

The court heard that when the DWP investigated, it found the couple had taken holidays for scuba-diving lessons to destinations including Sharm-El-Sheikh in Egypt, the Maldives and Indonesia.

‘Exaggerated needs’

Judge Nigel Van der Bijl told Rose Jones he accepted that she had a severe back condition and had been signed off work by her GP.

“But what you did was build up a case of fraud by exaggerating your needs and gilding the lily,” he said.

The DWP said she falsely claimed £45,500 in incapacity benefit, £52,181 in disability living allowance, £15,975 in tax credits and £5,351 in carers allowance

She was convicted of six counts of furnishing false information, four of obtaining money by deception and two of dishonestly making false representation.

DWP spokesman Steve Tremlett said the sentences reflected the seriousness of the crime.

“We had here some £130,000 of benefits that should go to the most vulnerable in society and they were used to fund a quite lavish lifestyle,” he said.

This is an unpleasant surprise, considering that just last night, half my Twitter friends, my mum and I saw the torch being carried by a fictional character from Eastenders!

While others flock to watch the Olympic torch being carried through Kingston upon Thames this morning, the 15-year-old local wheelchair athlete, Jack Binstead, is flying out of the country with his family to avoid being reminded of what might have been.

Jack – known as Wheelz to his friends – received 20 nominations to carry the torch from supporters across the UK, but was overlooked by torch relay organisers Locog. Instead, today’s line-up of torchbearers includes BP’s Olympics operations manager and Chai Patel, one of the biggest donors to the British Olympic Association, according to data collected for our website, Help me investigate the Olympics.

“It was upsetting to hear that I had not got the place, because it would have been a completely surreal experience,” Jack says. “Racing has taken up quite a lot of my life and, at the back of my mind, I am just hoping the reason I did not get it was a fair reason.”

In total, 20 of the 24 Kingston torchbearers come from outside the south-west London borough, and local people may wonder where Jack is. “I had a lot of random people come up to me asking about it,” he says. “They were disappointed and upset that I had not been chosen. I had put all the hard work into it and I had so many nominations.”

A spokesperson for Locog did not discuss Jack’s case, instead pointing out that, across the UK, more than 60,000 nominations for torchbearers had been received, “each with their own inspirational story. The judging panels had a really difficult task of choosing those that should be put forward.”

Before the relay began, Locog promised that half the torchbearers would be aged between 12 and 24 – yet as the relay comes to its climax, only a third have come from that group. “I guess I would ask them [Locog] to have a bigger dig into their list and see who is there,” says Jack. “Maybe there are some up-and-coming youngsters who they haven’t heard of yet and deserve to have a go.”

Locog’s spokesperson added: “People were chosen on merit through the public nomination campaigns rather than their age. It is right that we selected people with the strongest personal stories.”

Having broken 64 bones since he was four weeks old, Jack is an ambassador for the Brittle Bone Society. He is also ranked eighth fastest in wheelchair speeds in the UK, and has even broken records while nursing broken bones. His bravery was recognised in 2007 with a Children of Courage award. Now he is aiming for the 2016 Paralympics in Brazil, but to achieve this ambition, he will need to find sponsors where family and local charities have helped to date.

“It is always helpful to have some funding,” Jack says. “Mine is a very expensive sport, so the torch relay would have got me recognition and a possible chance of sponsorship.”