Trampoline park turned away girl, 8, with sensory issues after sock row - Cornwall Live

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A furious dad has accused a trampoline park of not being inclusive for children with special needs after his little girl was turned away because she couldn't wear specific socks. Mike Brands, from St Austell, wants to warn other parents of children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) they could face the same problem.

His wife took their daughter Poppy, eight, who is on the pathway to being diagnosed with autism, to Super Tramp in Bodmin on Thursday (October 24). They brought her own non-slip, gripper socks due to sensory issues with specific materials.

The staff then turned her away and said she couldn't bounce on the trampolines as she was wearing a pair of unbranded socks. "I just want to call them out for their ridiculous and discriminatory behaviour," he said.

Responding to the complaint, the park has explained while "communication could have been better" at the time that it has the policy in place for the safety of everyone. A spokesperson said it's for insurance purposes and that it goes above and beyond to ensure it provides separate inclusive sessions for children with special needs.

"[The park] asked my neurodiverse child to leave the park because her sensory issues prevent her from wearing their issued socks," Mr Brands said. "Instead she wore her own 'gripper soles' slipper socks, which are almost identical in structure to the issued socks from the park.

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"They advertise as SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) friendly yet this is obviously not the case. We booked her ticket through a home education group so you'd think the park would be expecting some children with additional needs to be attending.

"This seems to me to be a case of discrimination against a young child who already has enough struggles in her life to deal with," he continued, saying that it was a huge setback as sometimes it's hard enough just getting her out of the house.

After writing a complaint to the branch manager and receiving a refund, he said it was not about the money. "I just want to raise it as an issue, and I don't want other people going there and going through what we went through.

"I get that health and safety is a big thing nowadays but are we really at the point where some socks is that big of a deal?" Speaking of the email response he was given, Mr Brands said: "He then goes on to claim they are inclusive because they run separate SEND sessions - that's not inclusive in my book- and that a compromise may have been met if we'd rung ahead. I fail to see what compromise could be made that couldn't have been agreed at the time."

The park, which is one of many across the country, said that had it been aware of Poppy's sensory issues ahead of time they could have tried to make exceptions or advised them to attend an alternative session put on specifically for children with varying sensory issues.

It said it runs SEND or 'Support' sessions on Thursdays and Sundays which the park said do not make it any money and are designed to accommodate additional needs. A spokesperson for Super Tramp said: "We run additional SEND sessions which is not something a lot of our competitors do. We don't make any money on these sessions and we do them purely to be inclusive.

"If we can make exceptions to [the policy] then we always do try to. But we like customers to make us aware of any sensory sessions before the appointment so we can manage the expectations.

"I did sympathise with our customers on this one as they just see a sock with a bunch of stuff on the bottom, but from an insurance point of view they insure us as a park and if someone gets injured in any shape or form the first question is 'what did you do to mitigate this risk'."

"The fact that we have those sessions and most of our rivals don't is a way of mitigating risk and giving everyone an opportunity to do it."

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