Premier Inn apologises to Paralympian Ellie Challis over broken lift - BBC News
World record holder Ellie Challis, 19, says she took a 200-mile trip home in the middle of the night.
Ellie Challis is a Paralympic swimmer and continues to hold one world record and multiple British bests

Premier Inn has apologised to a Paralympic swimmer and her father after a broken lift meant they were unable to access their first floor hotel room.

Ellie Challis, 19, and dad Paul said they waited two hours at the hotel in Romford, east London, but were told no other accommodation could be found.

The pair said they had no option but to make a 200-mile (322km) journey home to Manchester in the middle of the night.

However, the pair said the recompense was not enough.

Challis became Paralympics GB's youngest medallist at Tokyo 2020 when she reached the podium in the Women's S3 50m Backstroke on her Games debut.

She continues to hold one world record and multiple British bests.

Challis said they became aware of the issue at the hotel late in the evening on 2 December.

She is originally from Clacton in Essex, but her family are now based in Manchester, which meant the journey home took about four hours during the night.

Challis uses a wheelchair and had booked a standard room for her and her father to stay in, because she often finds the wet rooms in accessible rooms uncomfortable.

She said: "If I was on my own, I would have been left at 19 to find myself with somewhere to stay at 1am."

The swimming star said she was often met with similar obstacles at train stations and while boarding planes.

"It is just irritating," she said. "Most of the time I get a 'sorry' that is not really 'sorry', and it is the same next time."

Her father said: "There is no point in saying 'sorry' if you're not going to do something about it in the future.

"All my fight is to try and get these things cured for the future - not just for Ellie, for anybody, and at the moment these things are going to happen again."

Premier Inn has apologised to the Paralympian

Premier Inn said in a statement: "When a guest books an accessible room, this automatically triggers a pre-stay call to make sure the room booked is the most suitable for them.

"However, we understand some people with accessibility issues on occasion do prefer to book our standard rooms.

"Where this is the case we have an accessible email helpline, which again helps ensure the room allocated is the best fit for individual needs.

"In this instance for example, we would have prioritised this booking as a ground floor room so that in rare event an issue with the lift did arise, access would not have caused a problem."

In response, Challis said it should not be up to her to contact the email helpline and bookings should be simplified so wheelchair users can book a ground floor room.

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