Contact - beyonddisability@email.com
Network Rail & Sadiq Khan have been discriminating against disabled performers for years....Click Here
PUT A RAMP ON IT - A stage without a ramp means no disabled people allowed to work or perform here. Illegal but common - See Story here
Direct action by disabled people this winter in London Tube, railway stations and covered markets....Click Here
Greenwich Council blew over 40 million pounds preventing disabled people from going to work in their new performing arts venue....Part One Click Here
Greenwich Council refuse to investigate disability discrimination cases at the council....Click Here...
Why campaign for disability equality in the Performing Arts in 2024?
Its been almost 30 years since the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, YET
Here is example why.....The ''Works Woolwich'' a recently opened performing Arts venue in Woolwich Greenwich that cost you, millions of pounds of public money like so many Arts Venues in the UK has:
NO Disability ramps on to their stages. This means no employment for:
Disabled backstage workers of any kind, No disabled admin jobs, no disabled front of house jobs, no disabled catering jobs, no disabled bar jobs, no disabled reception jobs - this is all illegal under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, yet all paid for by Greenwich Council and central Government, AND that's why so few disabled people are in work because the Government have been paying for them to be designed out of jobs. There are:
NO Disability accessible lower or height adjustable counters for their bars for visitors or workers
NO Disability accessible lower or height adjustable counters for their cafes for visitors or workers
NO Disability accessible lower or height adjustable counters for their reception counters for visitors or workers
In 2024 one of the worst examples of disability discrimination in the workplace was designed and baked in by Greenwich Council on purpose to stop disabled people from working or taking jobs in the Works Woolwich, or they just didn't care. Part two of Greenwich Council fraud Click Here ...Or continue reading about disability discrimination and withholding jobs for disabled workers in the performing arts, paid for with public money and the Arts Council.
When I witness the private security guards in in front of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden cowardly and shallowly intimidating & abusing disabled performers in order to get rid of them, performers like me, or the managers of the Opera House or West End Theatres who get upset about disabled people performing in front of their precious disability free buildings, all I see, are the aimless distorted broken people who run the Performing Arts in these venues, the same shameless sycophants who kept quiet about Savile and Weinstein and now keep quiet about disability discrimination.
As these monsters wrought pain and destruction upon blameless often underage people, the same people of Power in the Performing Arts are still silent about discrimination and abuse. These are the same individuals who steal money through the Arts Council that should be spent on disability access. Instead this disability access money is never spent on a back stage accessible toilets. or access ramps Most disabled performers still in 2024 have to use public front of house accessible toilets because the management spent the accessible grant money on keeping disabled people out of work.
The new Government wants disabled people into work yet their double standards prevail as they continue to fund Performing Arts establishments deliberately abusing and discriminating as if disability is a cancer that will infect them. These are very dark people that have no place in a modern society.
Stop giving senior management in the Performing Arts get out of jail free cards. If disability discrimination or disability abuse is found, start prosecuting them. We have an ex public prosecutor as PM, what's he doing covering this up.
These people should receive no more public funding of any kind.
We should not be paying for the discrimination and abuse of disable people then, victim blaming them for not working.
As a disabled performer I will not be told by any Public authority that I cannot GO TO WORK FOR A LIVING as a disabled performer when the Performing Arts venue run by the authority has taken public money and fraudulently used it to discriminate against disabled people working in the Performing Arts.
The biggest funders paymasters abusers and discriminators of disabled people in the UK may in fact turn out to be.... The Arts Council!
I am happy for the Met to arrest me for being a disabled person with the criminal intent of - going to work as a disabled performer. After all ''how dare disabled people think they have the same rights as abled bodied people.......'' At least a legal case would give disabled people access to all the fraudulent documents so we can discover who it was that signed off the Arts Council grant & declared fraudulently that their backstage performing venue was fully accessible?
John Smith - bottom left - performing with the Citizens Of The World Choir recording session July 21st 2024 City of London..Click to go to website
Discrimination within the Performing Arts in London is so common, it is considered by many to be, ''Just one of those things disabled people have to put up with to get on''. In the same way the industry said that Harvey Weinstein and Jimmy Savile's abuse of women was ''Just one of those things women had to put up with to get on''. Until Weinstein went to prison, but only after years of silence from the Performing Arts industry who said nothing and allowed it to continue - As they did with Jimmy Savile, they said nothing and allowed the abuse to continue - They are today still saying nothing and allowing the abuse & discrimination towards disabled people to continue.
Just like Harvey Weinstein the Performing Arts funders and establishments have tried to cover up the millions of pounds they receive each year from the Arts Council and Government with tacit approval allowing venues to routinely discriminate and abuse (See video of disability abuse from Greenwich Council) and prevent disabled people from working in the Performing Arts.
Such as disabled:
Performers
Back stage techs sound & lighting
Wardrobe and make up
Production and design
Front of house
Admin
John has also unflinchingly given evidence against the Metropolitan Police concerning rampant police corruption within the Met linked to corruption in private security personnel in London on the South Bank and on Bankside Tate Modern abusing and harassing disabled people in the Performing Arts as he discovered them covering up crime & routinely lying.
Through his campaigning with the press he has brought about change in a number of establishments including The Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester when they perpetrated one of the worst cases of disability discrimination using Arts Council money of over two million pounds approved by Manchester City Council. Although the Works Woolwich may turn out to be up to fifty million pounds spent keeping disabled workers out of jobs in the Performing Arts.
As you will read how John has faced discrimination hate speech lies and defamation from all corners including the corrupt Met because of his uncompromising stance on equality and honesty when using public funds.
Greenwich Council refuse to put access ramps on any of their multi million pound stages, including community stages at The Works Woolwich. - Story here
Westminster City Council use teams of private security people to abuse and harass disabled street performers in order to fund Covent Garden illegally - Story here
John Smith aka Dr Jazz Sax
Citizen of the world choir (singer)link
Advocate for Disability Rights in
the Performing Arts
Baritone/Bass - Vocalist
Saxophonist Guitarist
Independent musician in Covent Garden & Greenwich
This is how the establishment routinely attempts to silence disabled people in the Performing Arts through disability abuse, sanctioned and funded abuse by the Government and MET police.
Westminster City Council wrote ''public policy'' to benefit Shaftsbury Capital PLC, the owners of Covent Garden, by two million pounds a year
They did it by trashing the rights of disabled people
Case Study - Greenwich Council spent millions of pounds of your money deliberately designing out all disabled workers from their new multi million pound venue The Works Woolwich.
Greenwich Council have built their new summer event stage at their new heavily funded venue ''The Works'' in Woolwich. I took a look and discovered they had deliberately designed out disabled performers by not including a ramp onto the stage. Making sure no disabled performer or tech would ever work there. This means Arts Council funding was taken fraudulently.
It has to be a ramp to offer equality so that a disabled performer can get off stage for a scene change or costume change.
Greenwich Council deliberately designed the café and bar counters to high for disabled people to access independently safely.
The main ticket and reception desk has no accessible height counter for disabled visitors. This assumes disabled people can't ask questions or collect tickets independently and must have someone else to do it for them. The main café has around 50% of the seating that is not accessible to disabled people. The area for study groups has no ramps so is not accessible to disabled children. I could go on but why bother. Greenwich Council broke the law, took public money and deliberately designed out disabled people and workers in the Works Woolwich.
On the 8th of July a Greenwich Councillor lied (we can prove this) at a council meeting in order get rid of disabled buskers and musicians performing beside the Cutty Sark Greenwich. The new policy will mostly and materially effect only disabled performers. This is shocking. The culling of disabled people must stop. If you know of any disabled people this should be of the highest concern. Disabled people are being got rid of in Greenwich.
Greenwich Council criminalise disabled performers
Case Study - Westminster City Council broke the law when they enacted public policy without any impact assessment of the effect on disabled workers in the performing arts, and trashed the rights of disabled people attempting to work.
They also gave away millions of pounds of public money to Covent Garden (Shaftsbury Capital PLC) without telling anyone, least of all you the tax paying public. Corruption of the highest order/
Regardless of what councils may say my experience is that councils see disabled people as a drain on recourses often less than human and will go to extreme lengths, even through the courts, to marginalise disabled people and offload their legal and moral responsibilities. They frequently exclude disabled people when drafting public policy because to include them would mean higher costs. For some disabled people this can mean poverty, disadvantage destitution homelessness wrongful prosecution ill health or worst.
Both the councils, Greenwich and Westminster, talked about below, knowingly broke the law for years, law braking approved by elected councillors in order to spent money entitled to be spent on disabled people, but was spent on anything except disabled people. They both drafted illegal policy turning disabled people into criminals so they wouldn't have to spend money that had been given to them by central Government for disabled people. Essentially they stole money put aside for disabled people. (see footer)
The Met Police were happy to indulge these councils by enforcing unlawful policy that criminalised disabled people and allowed the Met Police to brake the law, with intent, with the criminal support of the courts in sanctioning disabled people based on knowingly unlawful local authority policy. This is a shameful period in UK political history supported by the same judges and courts that gave 900 Post Masters criminal records based on no more than a computer printout and the say so of corrupt public authorities armed with unlawful policies. Justice may result when Judges stop trusting bent prosecution lawyers as in the Horizon cases and cases based on unlawful public authority policy.
Also. Both councils took and spent public money fraudulently by not adhering to the disability discrimination act and using Arts council funding without adherence to the equality and inclusion rules the Arts Council demand.
In both councils it has become common practise to spend money set aside for disabled people on anything but disabled people. If you or I did this it would be called theft!
I can now produce evidence that Westminster City Council (WCC) have been writing public policy in order for one company, Shaftsbury Capital PLC to make an extra £2,000,000 a year.
The street performer policy was deliberately drafted to trash the rights of disabled people by making sure no disabled performer was able to secure their rights under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and perform in Covent Garden. This meant Covent Garden was able to have busker rights over the streets in Covent Garden, this was completely illegal as the surrounding cobbles are a public thoroughfare. This meant that the owners of Covent Garden did not have to pay the Circus acts magic acts and Opera singers, saving Covent Garden over two million pounds a year. Had the rights of disabled people been upheld then Covent Garden would not have been able to unlawfully claim any buskers rights of exclusion and the earnings of the Covent Garden Street Performers Association would have been much smaller and disabled performers would have been able to perform in Covent Garden.
WCC unlawfully gave authority to the private security force run by Shaftsbury Capital to harass intimidate and illegally eject disabled and non disabled performers from Covent Garden in order to bully and threaten lawful musicians into leaving. This was completely illegal. I was consistently threatened and abused to try to get me to leave.
WCC knowingly gave away the rights of disabled people in public policy in order for one Westminster company to make an extra two million pounds a year.
The private security in Covent Garden are now on record as using illegal activity against members of the public going about there business.
I believe that criminal acts have taken place.
I believe the Met Police have at all times supported the illegal activities of the Covent Garden private security force and WCC public policy in illegally excluding disabled people form working in Covent Garden and at one time were actually involved in illegally expelling lawful musicians from Covent Garden, thus braking the law.
WCC unlawfully never included disabled people in their impact assessment prior to the implementation of the policy. This means the Street Performer Policy was, and is, illegal and anyone who was excluded from performing in Covent Garden has a right to sue WCC and Covent Garden for los of earnings. We estimate that the losses could be as high as £400,000 per performer.
I am inviting consultation from firms of Solicitors to start proceedings.
I believe WCC licensing Department deliberately broke the law in order for Shafstsbury Capital to make a larger profit.
Over the last 5 months the activities of the Covent Garden private security force has been closely monitored and they have been braking the law almost every day.