Narcoleptic student forced to drop out of university because she kept falling asleep during lectures takes £34,000 compensation claim to court… along with her duvet and pillow

A narcoleptic student who abandoned her degree when she couldn't stay awake during lectures is demanding £34,000 compensation.
Shelley Maxwell, 49, has taken her disability discrimination case against Salford University to the Court of Appeal - and attended the hearing with a duvet and pillows in case she needed a nap.
Mrs Maxwell says the university did not do enough to help her while she studied for a degree in military and international history.

Narcoleptic: Shelley Maxwell, pictured arriving at court with a pillow yesterday, claims that Salford University discriminated against her

She suffers from a disorder which means she needs up to 16 hours of sleep every day and is prone to nodding off in the afternoons.
Her problem - described as 'narcoleptic in nature' - meant she could not complete her degree and left the university at the end of her first year in 2005.

 

While her classmates were taking notes during lectures, the mature student was often fast asleep, oblivious to her lecturers' teaching.
She complained that the university's provision of written notes for the lectures she slept through was insufficient support to enable her to take her end-of-year exams.
The university offered to let her restart her course, with her tuition free of charge, but Mrs Maxwell was unhappy and complained to the students' watchdog, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

Salford University: Mrs Maxwell claims that the provision of lecture notes was inadequate to enable her to take her exams

After an investigation, the OIA recommended that the university pay for Ms Maxwell to restart her first year, give her £2,500 compensation for inconvenience and distress, and to review its procedures in relation to helping disabled students.
But the decision did not go far enough, Mrs Maxwell claimed, because it did not express a view that she was a victim of disability discrimination and left her far short of the £34,000 payout she hoped to receive.
At the High Court last year, Mr Justice Foskett rejected a judicial review challenge to the decision, in which Mrs Maxwell's lawyers argued that the OIA should have recommended compensation at a much higher level.
Today - clutching a pillow - she took her case to the Court of Appeal, where her lawyers began a challenge to the OIA's refusal to make a discrimination finding.
In a case which he says could have wide-ranging effects for other disabled students, Gregory Jones QC said a refusal to express a view on the central issue meant it is possible that universities could get away with discrimination.
'In refusing to express a view about disability discrimination that may have been suffered by a complainant, where its procedure may be the only forum the complaint is likely to be aired in, the OIA may inadvertently be enabling discriminatory behaviour to continue without being exposed as such,' he said.
He added that, if the OIA came to its decision to recommend compensation and a review of procedures based on discrimination, then it should have made that clear.
OIA barrister Sam Grodzinski QC said it had considered the substance of Mrs Maxwell's complaint about how her disability was addressed by the university.
It had taken into account the Disability Discrimination Act and made findings about a failure to provide sufficient assistance, then made recommendations on how to deal with it, he said. It was not obliged to do more.
Speaking outside court, Mrs Maxwell said that, despite getting promising marks for the two essays she wrote during her first term, she felt unable to take the end-of-year exams.
She said she needs at least 12, and up to 16, hours of sleep every day, but knows when she is going to fall asleep and does not do so unexpectedly.
The judges reserved their decision on the appeal until a later date.