Fiona Bruce is the current host of Question Time (Image: BBC)
A disabled man who was a Question Time audience member and said he felt “discriminated” against when he was forced to surrender his crutches during filming of the BBC current affairs show has called presenter Fiona Bruce biased, claiming he preferred the previous host, David Dimbleby. Andy Brown, 62, from Walsall, a former nurse who suffers from a progressive neurological condition and other issues, requires either elbow crutches or a wheelchair to get around. He attended the show on June 26, 2014, when it was chaired by David Dimbleby, who greeted the audience beforehand.
Despite his overall bad experience, he had nothing but praise for Dimbleby, who hosted for 25 years, from January 1994 until December 2018 and was the longest-serving presenter in the show’s history. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, he recalled: “David was very charming. In fact, I rather liked David as the chair of the show. I’m not very keen now on Fiona Bruce, because I think that she interrupts the panel far too much,” he observed.
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David Dimbleby hosted Question Time for a quarter of a century (Image: BBC)
“I’ve chaired many meetings, while I was an elderly care nurse, and I was also a union rep, and I’ve done lots of charity stuff where I’ve had to chair meetings.
“The role of the chair is obviously to remain, I mean, you have your own ideas, but to remain impartial, or at least try and to be unbiased.
“But I think Fiona interrupts far too much. And I think she comes across to me as she’s rather biased, depending on which guests are there, and she doesn’t let them speak. But that’s just from my own personal point of view,” he clarified.
While Andy had a good experience with David, his overall visit to the show was tarnished when his crutches were taken away before filming began. “I was seated in the front row, and I’d obviously got my elbow crutches. And someone said: ‘Oh, we’ll have to take those away’. And I looked, and I said: ‘You can’t do that because if I need to stand up…’ And I remember they said something like: ‘Oh, well, if you just signal to someone that’s off set’ – off to the side of our camera shot – ‘they’ll get them for you’.”
Andy Brown was in the Question Time audience when David Dimbleby was host (Image: Supplied)
He acknowledged that, in the event of an evacuation, he would not have been able to get out without his mobility aids, as he cannot stand without them. Andy says he challenged the request at the time as he thought it was “bizarre”. “I remember saying: ‘Well, are you embarrassed that you have a disabled person on the show? Because that sounds very discriminatory to me’,” he recalled.
“Fortunately, I didn’t need the elbow crutches until we were ready to come home, but I’ve never had anything like that before. I am a disability advocate, and I find it quite discriminatory. It’s almost like we used to do years ago, when we used to shut people away because they had disabilities and didn’t want the world to see them. But I don’t know, of course, what their thinking was,” he concedes.
The BBC apologised when contacted by Express.co.uk with Mr Brown’s claims. A BBC spokesperson said: “We are sorry that Mr Brown did not have a good experience on Question Time in the past and we have offered to contact him directly to discuss this further.
“We want to make everyone welcome in the Question Time audience, and if an audience member has accessibility requirements, we will make the necessary adjustments to ensure they are able to attend.”
They also confirmed that with their current protocol, they may ask people with crutches to place them under their chair to keep walkways and camera routes clear as a matter of health and safety, but they wouldn’t remove them.