"I had to give up my job": How accessible is the court system?

EMMA - Hello, I'm Emma Tracy. This is Access All and coming up on the programme, I chat to autistic Emmerdale actor Bradley Riches about his new memoir come self-help book, Autistically Me.

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BRADLEY - As soon as I start, you know, thinking of doing tasks or having a time or doing these things as like a game, it suddenly becomes exciting and I want to do it. And also like the music time and like trying to do a task within a song or stuff like that, it makes it a bit more fun and it helps me focus to do what I need to do.

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EMMA - More of that chat later. And Beth Rose is with me. Hi Beth.

BETH - Hi Emma, lovely to be with you again.

EMMA - I know because we've been together a bit this month. We went to sunny Glasgow to visit some disabled break dancers. More about that later.

Now you know I'm not one to overthink things, right?

BETH - Oh yeah, absolutely. You just like go with the flow.

EMMA - Always, always. I didn't get quite up in my head about whether to shake hands with all of the new people I met.

BETH - Oh, why?

EMMA - Handshakes for me are a kind of a double-edged sword because I don't know where the hand's going to be. I don't know when they're going to stick the hand out. I don't know whether impairment-wise they have a hand that's available to shake. I'm not joking. Paul Carter, BBC journalist, hadn't known that he had some digits missing after talking to him for a fair length of time. I feel a bit awkward about it, but at the same time, I get so much from it. First of all, do people still shake hands?

BETH -   I think they don't shake hands as much as they used to. But yes, I like to shake a hand because I feel like it sets me up for what's coming next. Especially, I suppose we just say it was a work event, right? We weren't just there having a mini break, but we were there on official business.

EMMA - And what would you do instead of a handshake? It would be an eye thing, wouldn't it?

BETH – It would, but I think the handshake is there because it takes away the awkwardness. Because if we didn't have that, we'd look at each other, sizing each other up, laugh nervously, or you have to go all in for a hug. Whereas a handshake is just like neutral, no emotion attached, but we've connected on some level and now we can get on with our day. That's like the starter's gun.

EMMA - So as I say, I'm not one to overthink things, but I've really been thinking on this, this is the other edge of the sword. It's really helpful because other than the voice, and you might have only had a hello, you have no idea about that person.  And actually shaking the hand when you're blind gives you a sort of an idea of their height and then, the size of the hand, whether there are rings on it. But I would argue that shaking hands is 100 times better than feeling someone's face.

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EMMA - Hello, yes I am Emma Tracey, this is Access All and I am here every month talking to fabulous disabled people from all corners of life and bringing the most important disability and mental health stories to your ears.

Coming up, how accessible are courts and the justice system? We'll be hearing from jurors and lawyers who are wheelchair users about how they navigate these most important of spaces.

Please do hit that big subscribe button on BBC Sounds or if you're outside the UK it's wherever you get your podcasts and do get in touch with me e-mail accessall@bbc.co.uk.  elp us set the agenda.

Inaccessible courts have led to people struggling at work, having to join cases remotely despite being metres from the courtroom and feeling at risk as jurors. These are just a handful of the experiences shared by jurors and lawyers with BBC journalist Kateryna Pavlyuk. Katernya's been looking into how accessible courts are for wheelchair users specifically and she joins me now. Kateryna, what did you find out?

KATERYNA - So I found a very mixed bag. I'll start with what should happen, which is that under the Equality Act, courts must provide reasonable adjustments for anyone with a disability. And a lot of people told me that court staff were really helpful, often did everything they could, but a lot can and does go wrong. So things like broken lifts, lack of parking and most of all lack of information or communication.

So to give a few examples, I've heard from jurors who couldn't independently get to the jury canteen, so other jurors had to bring down their lunch for them, wheelchair users on juries who couldn't get to parts of the buildings that are for jurors, which are separate by design. And so they had to be escorted at all times through the main building by security, often passing defendants and their families. And finally, there's always the potential for an unwelcome surprise. So in 2020, a disabled juror was discharged early from jury service, having spent a fortnight listening to a case at Maidstone Crown Court because all five lifts broke.

EMMA - Goodness, that must have been pretty demoralising for them. What are the solutions, Katarenya?

KATERYNA - So I think the most important, but probably the most challenging is modernising buildings. That is tricky with courts. A lot of them are old, a lot of them are listed, but it's not impossible. A new courthouse was opened in February this year called the London Tribunal Centre and it's in this building right next to the Old Bailey which the government bought, refurbished and say is now fully accessible.

And in other legal spaces you have this law firm in London called 7BR. Their offices are in this 18th century Georgian townhouse and they invested really heavily in disabled access and have, for example, some really cool features like something called Sesame Steps, which basically collapse the front steps into a level access lift.

EMMA – Like open sesame.

KATERYNA - Exactly that. The Bar Council's disability panel, they've pointed to a lot of more immediate changes that can be made. So improving how people can communicate with courts about access, which might mean having an accessibility officer in every court.

EMMA - Okay. And how can wheelchair users currently find out the access info that they need?

KATERYNA - So every court in England and Wales has a government webpage, as do Scottish courts, on a separate directory. But the information on there is let's say limited, inconsistent and sometimes out of date. So some courts will say if there's a lift or a disabled toilet, some might have no information about wheelchair accessibility. What each court webpage does have is a number that people can get in touch with to ask about that particular court's accessibility facilities. But there are two problems with this. One is that it puts the responsibility of finding out about access facilities on the individual with a disability rather than making that clearly and publicly available.

EMMA- That old chestnut.

KATERYNA - Yes, and second, so the number given isn't always very helpful. I found that 11 courts direct those with access inquiries to the number for the National Divorce Contact Centre…

EMMA – Interesting

KATERYNA - …and four courts give a number relating to payment of fines and penalties. I did flag this to the Ministry of Justice, but at the time of recording, none of those 15 courts have changed the number on their webpage.

EMMA - Thank you, Kateryna.

Now I'm joined by two people who know lots about what Kateryna's been talking about. We've got Victoria Gerrard, who's in Renfrew in Greater Glasgow, and she was recently a juror, and Holly Girven, a barrister in London. They're both wheelchair users. You're very welcome to Access All.

VICTORIA and HOLLY- Thank you for having us. Nice to meet you.

EMMA - Now, just a note to say that, justice is devolved in Scotland, but the Equality Act still is in place and it's the same requirements around reasonable adjustments as well.

Victoria, you've had a mixed experience during your jury service. Let's start with the good stuff. What went well?

VICTORIA - So the other jurors were just amazing. They were so supportive and so helpful. And the individual court staff themselves were just absolutely lovely. They couldn't have been nicer. It was more the practical aspects. It was like no one had ever thought about a juror being a wheelchair user before.

EMMA - And how did that play out?

VICTORIA - So when I went on my first day, I was told, oh, there's a ramp into the jury room, which there was, but it was a door that opened outwards. So I had to try and keep the door open while I wheeled myself in. And it was quite a narrow door. I basically had to sit and wait for someone else to open the door and hold it for me.

EMMA - And what about the courtroom itself?

VICTORIA - So I couldn't get into the jury box. They actually took me in before they took all the other jurors in to show me what it was like and asked would I want to transfer into the jury box, which as I say was up a step. So I decided I didn't want to do that, which meant I was then sitting next to the jury box.

EMMA - Okay, so you were separated a little bit.

VICTORIA - Yeah. it meant they had to slightly rejig the court because where I sat was normally have the barristers right in front of me, which meant that they were then slightly at an angle to the juror rather than looking them face on.

EMMA - And how did the court feel about having to do that, about putting that in place?

VICTORIA - Well, they did ask me after I'd seen it, did I want to just be discharged?

EMMA - Really? And what did you say?

VICTORIA - No, I wanted to do it. I wanted to see justice done.

EMMA - Let's bring in barrister Holly Girven and Holly you go to courts quite a lot. How well have your access needs been accommodated in general?

HOLLY - I've had a lot of very positive experiences and I agree that often the court staff are incredibly helpful and it's not their fault, it's the infrastructure of the buildings but unfortunately I'm still in the position that I occasionally have these negative experiences which do have a significant impact both on my ability to make sure I'm representing my clients as I should be and I have to come up with ways to navigate that and also my experience as a human being going to court.

EMMA - Yeah and tell me about some of the other experiences you've had.

HOLLY - So I know which courts I can normally get to. I have a kind of database that I use and I've had two occasions now at least I think when I've turned up at court and the lift has been broken and the HMCTS website hasn't been updated.

EMMA - So it's a court service?

HOLLY - Yes.

EMMA - And what did you do?

HOLLY - So in both those situations I ended up having to join remotely, so via Teams, everyone else involved in that hearing was in the courtroom and I was kind of zoomed in on one of the big TVs on the wall.

EMMA - And how did that feel?

HOLLY - It was just an extremely difficult experience and felt a little bit isolating.

EMMA - And you mentioned your chambers there, how supportive have they been?

HOLLY - Really, really supportive. I mean, they also, so before I started it wasn't actually wheelchair accessible, so they've now installed a lift so I can get in the building, which was obviously great. And they're just really supportive whenever anything goes wrong, they'll, you know, help me write a complaint letter or, you know, raise it themselves with HMCTS, so I'm not necessarily having to do all of that kind of disability admin that can add a lot of time to my life.

EMMA - What changes would you like to see, Holly?

HOLLY - I think, I have an awareness that ultimately making every courtroom in England and Wales and Scotland will cost an awful lot of money and HMCTS is strapped for cash, it's there and so I can understand why it hasn't been possible to make every courtroom accessible. But I think what I'd really like to see is that it being prioritised, that the information provided is really reliable because actually especially as a barrier, I can manage my practice quite well if I'm given accurate information because that means that if I'm asked to go to a court that isn't accessible, we can quickly make inquiries with the court and ask for it to be moved. You know, I think what is achievable is a real good provision of information.

EMMA - Okay, thank you Holly.

Now I also recently spoke to Vikki Walton-Cole and she is a power chair user. And inaccessible courts was one of the reasons that she quit her job as a social worker.

Now Vikki, you were regularly in courtrooms as part of your work as a social worker. What was that like as a wheelchair user?

VIKKI - I was physically disabled but wasn't a full-time wheelchair user at the time and I'd let them know that I was disabled and I needed step free and things like that. And when I arrived at the courtroom, the court I'd been assigned was upstairs. The blue badge parking was further away than standard parking. It was really overwhelming. They did change it into a level access courtroom, but it was very much made to feel like they're doing this massive favour and this judge has given up their courtroom specially for you.

EMMA - And how did you feel?

VIKKI - I mean, I just didn't feel very professional at all. I was in so much pain when I arrived from walking. I was in tears almost. Just didn't feel I was able to be. There to do my job.

EMMA - And were there any other incidents like that when you were a social worker?

VIKKI - So not really because I did a lot less court work once I was disabled.

EMMA - So you're doing less court work, was that in a direct reaction to having a mobility impairment?

VIKKI - It would have had a massive impact and there's certainly no way I could go back to that area of social work again.

EMMA - Also, after you stopped being a social worker, more recently, Vikki, you were called to jury service. And that kind of showed you a different side of courtroom access. Tell me about that experience.

VIKKI - Because of my background in social work, I was really keen to do jury service because I thought I had a lot of professional experience to bring. I then was trying to get in contact with the courtroom from September until I think it was the beginning of March 2025, going forwards and backwards between various places trying to understand the access that was available and whether it would meet my needs. And the very, very first time I put out my adjustment request in an e-mail to the court, they replied with, sort of like whilst there are some courts that could meet your needs, here's the information about how you can be excused because of your disabilities.

EMMA - And how did that make you feel?

VIKKI - I think for me that was like, well, no, I want to do it. Why should I just be excused because I'm disabled? I didn't feel that my disabilities in themselves would have prevented me from being a juror if the access was available.

EMMA - And as a disabled social worker and a disabled person, what's your feeling around, you know, this happening to other disabled people and them being excused and just going with it? You know, what does that mean for the justice system?

VIKKI - When I've spoken to other wheelchair users, they've always been, oh yeah, you just get excused, almost like it's a regular thing. Why should we not be part of this system. Juries are supposed to represent the community from all walks of life and if particular people are always going to be excused or always going to find it more difficult to be able to do this, how is that a just and a fair system when there might be specific insights that you as a disabled person might have and if it's a disabled witness, a disabled defendant. How could you expect that fairness and understanding if the likelihood of someone being similar to you on the jury is going to be incredibly low?

EMMA - So did you do it in the end?

VIKKI - No, I didn't do it in the end.

EMMA - In an ideal world, what would happen?

VIKKI - I'm one who believes that accessibility information should be shared with everyone. So if you get your jury summons, you get also along with it a pack that tells you about the accessibility at the court and then a direct e-mail address for a person that you can e-mail directly. And that is information you give to everyone. You don't assume that people don't need that information.

EMMA - Vikki, tell me the difference between when you had no access requirements and needed to go to court and now. What is the difference?

VIKKI - It's massive. You don't have to think about, can I get through the door? Can I get into a room? Can I, you know, can I use a toilet? Whereas now I just, I wouldn't want to turn up and not be able to get in or have my access needs met. And I don't know, I'm assuming other people feel the same, but when I experience real inaccessibility, it really impacts me emotionally, psychologically, and it comes to access information. Why does that have to be sort of shrouded in this sort of secrecy?

EMMA - That was Vikki Walton-Cole.

Kateryna, what did the court services say in response to your research into the accessibility of courtrooms and what the guests have told us?

KATERYNA - So a spokesperson from HM Courts and Tribunal Service said, we understand accessibility remains a challenge in some buildings and we're working closely with disability groups to reduce the barriers disabled people face when accessing justice. They also added that the information on their find a court or tribunal site is regularly reviewed and updated and that a review of all content, including accessibility information, is currently underway. And the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service said that they have a web page on accessibility for jurors. They also have dedicated jury liaison officers who can assist jurors with disabilities.

EMMA - Thank you, Kateryna Pavlyuk, and thanks also to Victoria Gerard, Holly Girven and Vikki Walton-Cole. And you can find an online article about this subject on the BBC News website really soon.

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EMMA - Beth Rose is back with me now to talk about what we've both been up to this month and I'm kind of hoping she's about to bust out some moves that she learned from the disabled breakdancing crew Ill-abilities when we met them in Glasgow recently. That's going to happen isn't it Beth?

BETH - Absolutely not Emma. Having actually seen breakin' as we like to call it now in real life there's no way I mean even attempting anything. So yes, we went to Glasgow, as you said, which is near where you live, but it was a first time visit for me and we went to Breakin' Conventions, which was a whole breakdance festival and they had this amazing crew called ILL-Abilities, which is made-up of nine disabled people from all over the world. We met two of them, so Redo from Netherlands and Samuka from Brazil and they had choreographed a duet, which was this 15-minute extraordinary dance sequence, kind of a bit of contemporary dance, but also a lot of breakdancing tricks and spins. And we got to have a chat with them beforehand.

REDO - My name is Redo. I'm from the Netherlands.

SAMUKA - What up? My name is Samuel, AKA Samuka, from Brazil.

REDO – ILL-Abilities is a, it's actually a play on words. We replace the word dis and the word disability with ill. And ill literally means sick. But in the hip hop, in the dance world, like you use these terms and like slang. Like if you see something you like, you say, oh, that's sick or that's crazy. I think that's the beauty also about breaking that it doesn't really matter what your physical ability is. You find your own movements. You have your own creative way of expressing. I was born without any medical explanation with a shorter right arm. I have only two fingers on my right hand and three fingers on my left hand. My right leg is shorter. I wear a prosthetic and I miss my right hip.

EMMA - What does that do?

REDO - It makes me walk like a cool gangster guy. But also growing up, I had a lot of pain because my body was constantly like off balance. And actually, when I started dancing, my body got way stronger and I didn't have these pains anymore.

EMMA - Samuka, how did you get into break dancing?

SAMUKA - One day in the school, I saw like some people like spinning on their heads. I was like, oh, I want to try that. So it was like a social project in my city. And then I tried, you know, a year after I lost my leg and I was like, oh my gosh, what I'm going to do now? And then I saw a guy from ILL-Abilities crew, actually. Like...

EMMA – From ILL-Abilities?

SAMUKA - …Yes, like 14 years ago, dancing like with one leg and I was like, yo, that's possible.

BETH - So those were the two dancers, Redo and Samuka, who spent so much time with us. It was amazing. But they also spent loads of time with some young Scottish dancers, a dance group called Indepen-dance.

EMMA - Love that. I don't usually like those sort of plays on words, but I think independence is a great word and Independ-dance and it's kind of contemporary dance, isn't it? So they do their own thing, which kind of leans into that.

BETH - Most of them hadn't really done breakdance before. All the staff got involved too. There was no getting away from it. And they spent a good two hours learning a bit of breakdancing, incorporating some of their own moves. The vibe was just so excited, so fantastic. It was the best way to start a Saturday morning in Glasgow. And we chatted to a few of the dancers. So here's Olivia first off.

OLIVIA - I like the music. I like all the moves. It makes me feel happy, feel good about myself. It keeps me fit.

CHRIS - My name is Chris. I love to dance. Handstands, cartwheels. I really want to more breaking.

EMMA - It's a big part of their lives.

BETH - And actually, Emma, here's a good question for you. Someone asked me, how did Emma experience a dance show if she can't see it.

EMMA - Well, it wasn't, fully through your descriptions anyway.

BETH - It was so hard. I did not have the language to tell you what was going on.

EMMA - Yeah, they were pretty vague and minimal, I have to say. But also we asked them to do some sequences of moves because we were filming for TV, and listening to kind of their shoes and the spinning on the floor and kind of all the moving around they were doing. That was quite exciting. It did sound very energetic. And then they showed me how to do a pose, which was much, much, much less energetic. It was some crossing arms and crossing feet in a little pose at the end.

Let's move on, Beth, to an entirely different subject. It's NEETs, and that's people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training. And the Milburn interim report came out recently. It's very much linked to the ongoing benefits reviews reform that disabled people are getting nervous about all over again. The number of NEETs is the highest it's been since 2014. It's just gone over a million. And the report talks about the situation. It doesn't talk about the solutions at the moment. They will be discussed when the final report comes out in the autumn, which incidentally is when the Timms Review into personal independence payments comes out as well.

BETH - So what did they find? I know they're looking at the situation. What is the current situation?

EMMA - Alan Milburn, who wrote the report, said that the disability NEET gap is devastating and he was citing figures from 2024 / 25, which says that 29.6% of disabled people in that age group are NEETs and 8% of non-disabled people are NEETs. And the gap is about 20 percentage points and it hasn't really moved in a decade. He did talk about how benefits are managed and actually Disability Rights UK, Disability First campaigning charity, and they've been lobbying for, you know, we've been talking about Universal Credit and the health top up and under 22-year-olds that may be being taken away from them. Well, they've been lobbying against that and they feel like the Milburn Report is kind of indicating that won't be taken away from under 22s now, but we don't know yet. So that's kind of interesting.

BETH - That is interesting. So you said it's an interim report, so do we know when we'll get the full thing?

EMMA - They say the autumn and as I say that's when the Timms Review into personal independence payments comes out and I think a lot of people feel like they will be linked and recommendations from one will feed into recommendations from the other.

Beth you've been looking at another report haven't you?

BETH - I have, we can't get enough of these reports at the moment so it's another interim report and it has come from the Work and Pensions Committee which is basically a cross-government committee so people from all parties get involved and they have released their first disability at work report and a bit like the Lord of the Rings Emma this is coming as a trilogy which is quite exciting. So this the first one came out as part of its employment support for disabled people inquiry and it came up with lots of recommendations.

EMMA - What kind of recommendations did they come up with?

BETH - So the main one that a lot of people, individuals and organisations are getting really excited about is around reasonable adjustments. And this committee has called on the government to introduce a new two week deadline for employers to respond to someone's request. So at the moment, which I didn't realise, there's no end date, if someone applies for a reasonable adjustment, which is, maybe a chair or some support in the workplace to reduce any barriers, there's no deadline for them to be told yes, no, maybe this is what we're going to give you.

EMMA - And this is totally separate to Access To Work. So this is a reasonable adjustment that an employer could put in themselves, isn't it?

BETH - Exactly. So the union Unison, they did some research last year. They found that 82% of reasonable adjustments, the requests take more than four months to come back and some people are waiting up to a year to find out if they're even allowed their reasonable adjustment. When you just want to get on with your job, right?

EMMA - Yeah, but this is from the employer, right? So this is hard to understand really. I mean, is it just that there's no processes set up? You know, like you should just be able to ask them to be able to give you an answer pretty quickly. I would have thought, you know, you're not dealing with the government scheme here, you're dealing with your own employer.

BETH - You'd like to think, but I wonder if people get tied up in the fact that they're a bit unfamiliar with what is a reasonable adjustment, what should they be doing, what shouldn't they be doing, how do they go about it? I guess there's different purchasing powers companies have and I suspect it's like an admin concern and they're maybe not thinking about the individual who just wants to get on with their job.

EMMA - So what happens next?

BETH - So the government has six weeks to read, reflect and report back on these recommendations. Those 6 weeks do not include any recesses, which is basically when the MPs are on their holidays. And because we're in the summer months, there are quite a lot and they are quite long holidays. So we're being told sometime in the summer. And as I said, this is the first in the trilogy of reports. And the government have told me the second report called Connect to Work is due to be published before summer in quote marks and the third on access to work is due, quote marks, after the summer.

EMMA - We'll definitely be keeping an eye out for them, particularly the Access To Work one because I feel some changes coming down the track there.

BETH - Exactly. It feels quite exciting because I think these cross-party committees are actually coming up with some interesting ideas and solutions and you know I read this report and a lot of what they were suggesting are things that we hear from real people all the time and a lot of it is quite sensible and straightforward. So you never know,  hopefully some good things are on the horizon.

EMMA - Beth Rose, thank you.

BETH - You're welcome.

MUSIC

Emma - You may have seen my guest, Bradley Riches, as James in Heartstopper or Lewis Barton in Emmerdale. Well, now he's written a book, Autistically Me, and it tells his life story so far, and I say so far because he is very young indeed. He's autistic, as the title suggests, and the book is actually crammed full of tips for other autistic people too. And he is with me. Hi, Bradley.

BRADLEY - Hey, you OK?

EMMA - Yeah, I'm good. In terms of Emmerdale, you know, your character is autistic. What's it like to kind of act out things that have actually happened to you, know, shut down, burnout?

BRADLEY - It's quite cathartic in a way. I feel like you, Lewis is a separate character, but I do bring quite a lot of myself to him, because I think that's the most authentic way to obviously play the character. But when we're doing the burnout storylines and all those sort of things, I kind of think like, oh, how would Bradley react to this? And then kind of go with that, but then obviously make it a bit more Lewis type thing.

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It is like the whole world is amped up. My brain can't cope with it. It goes in like some kind of shutdown. I had no idea. To be honest, I try and hide it. It's easier than having to explain it to people. And even if I did it, sometimes I don't even have the energy to speak.

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BRADLEY: The writers and the researchers, they do ask me quite a lot, which is really cool about, what would you do in this situation? What would happen here?

EMMA - Have you ever looked at one of the scripts and said, no, that's not how it would happen and had to go back to them and say, I think we should do it this way?

BRADLEY - There's a little line. And it said someone asked me what I was doing and I'm like, I'm stimming. I only do it when I'm really stressed. And then I said, I was like, you stim as well when you're excited. So I was like, maybe we could change the line saying because it's saying only stress. That's not accurate.

EMMA - Explain what stimming is and what your faves are.

BRADLEY - A clap, a good clap. But I do something with my knees that I didn't know until I watched Big Brother back. I hyper lock them. So they're fully locked out, which is something I didn't know.

EMMA - So just stretch them out completely, like hard lock your knees and stretch them out completely.

BRADLEY - Yeah, and just go back.

EMMA - And you do that to kind of regulate, right?

BRADLEY - Yeah, and regulate emotions, yeah.

EMMA - Physical things to regulate emotions.

BRADLEY - Yeah.

EMMA - What accommodations or adjustments have you asked for and what do you do maybe slightly differently to the other cast members?

BRADLEY – Emmerdale have been amazing. Like before I joined, they asked, they obviously asked that question which I was a bit like, oh wow, this is... this is really cool that the workplace they make is so inclusive and accessible for all. So there's like a chill out like sensory room where you can go out if everything's becoming a bit overwhelming. Sometimes I think other people know me more than I know myself. Like I think sometimes you can see my eyes a bit glazed and a bit zoney outy and a kind of bit shut downy. And then it's happened once and one of the cast members, they were like, oh, maybe we should stop for a second. Script wise, I get sent my scripts like in real life. When I look at a screen, I look at a script, I look at it and I'm like, nothing's going on, I don't know this. But I can literally look at a piece of paper once or twice and the lines are in there. The options always there to get picked up or dropped off, especially if it's a long, hard day, because obviously you don't want to be driving when you're literally burnt out hell. So they have that option as well. so you can just have a nap in the car, chill, put the headphones on, listen to some music. I think they do more upstairs than I'm aware of. Some days when someone's got like 12 scenes, I'll have like three a day. So I think sometimes I'm a bit like, are they doing this on purpose?

EMMA - You were non-verbal until you were 10. And then what happened? How did you start to speak and get more support?

BRADLEY - When I was obviously younger, I felt like I kind of created my own communication or my own language with, my close ones, ones I love, obviously my parents, my sister, and they just got me. So it felt like words were never needed. But obviously that kind of changed when I then went into reception. Kids don't know how to communicate with other kids without using words because that's all we ever know. Over time obviously I had a great support teacher and assistant who helped me.

EMMA - Tell me about your teaching assistant.

BRADLEY - Having that support, it is transformative. It's no words were said, no, there was a language we got with each other via like, movements or sounds or, and she just got me like, well, she knew when I needed time out. She knew when I needed, when I was really fixated, when I was really enjoying it, when I was, getting something from it. I think support in schools is so important for accepting and knowing that you're not like a burden in the school. You are, you and that having a teaching assistant, having those different support it isn't an issue it is just something you need to excel in those environments. But over time, I kind of would start saying words. I would start communicating using language and words like my first word I started saying to my sister Abba, because her name's Amber. And everyone was like, he said Abba, which not the band. I was trying to say Amber.

EMMA - Drama was a big catalyst in that as well, wasn't it?

BRADLEY - Yes, my nan, she was like, throw him into acting classes, you know, he'll get confident from there. So I went into acting and then I started like, I guess I think what autistic people do, I think that's why so many neurodivergent autistic people are actors or creators, we can watch people and copy and mimic what they're doing well because I feel like a lot of the time you do try and understand and you try and dissect like people's emotions or dissect people's expressions or you try and dissect people to understand them more. And I think what I did was people were started speaking in like American accents and doing all these different acting things and shows. And then I kind of was like, oh, I'm not Bradley. I'm mimicking this. And then that's when I started talking. Well, obviously it was a long, journey between, say, Abba to speaking, but there was a good, couple of months where I was just speaking in an American accent because it was all I knew. I was like, this is how we talk, is it? I was like…

EMMA - …but that's not unusual for autistic people, actually, to have a different accent, I don't think.

BRADLEY - No, because it is that mimicking thing, isn't it? It's they're not understanding, oh, they do it, and people even find that funny or people understand that. So it's like, oh, I can do that, and then people might understand me. So that's what I did, and then over time I used those characters, used that American character to then be like, oh, no, but what does this mean for me? And then obviously then after that it was using words as Bradley and then accepting who I was and accepting what that meant for me as well.

EMMA - Let's talk about the book.

BRADLEY - Yeah, so Autistically Me, I talk a bit about myself and my journey, and that kind of sets up the book. And then I, throughout the book, it's kind of like, oh, this was my experience. Here's some tips that have helped, allowed me to manage X, Y, and Z. It also doesn't ignore the barriers and the different things that obviously being autistic comes with, but it does definitely go steer to how to use celebrate and be self-acceptant of yourself.

EMMA - How to human is what you call it. And you've got, it's the autistic edition and amazing tips. Tell me your favourite sort of time management tip that you've got in there.

BRADLEY - Oh, it's got to be the circle timer. You do a little circle and like if you've got three tasks to do, you put like 3 lines in the circle.

EMMA - Break it up into wedges on a whiteboard.

BRADLEY - Yes, and then when you've done one, you, rub each wedge out and then it turns like a Pac-Man, and then you do another wedge out, then it's like half circle, then you do another. As soon as I start, you know, thinking of doing tasks or having a timer or doing these things as like a game, it suddenly becomes exciting and I want to do it. And also like the music timer, like trying to do a task within a song or stuff like that, it makes it a bit more fun and it helps me focus to do what I need to do.

EMMA - So what songs do you hear in the shower every day?

BRADLEY - Hamilton, Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror Show. They're the three that play and then sometimes it goes into a bit of cabaret if I'm taking a little bit too long.

EMMA - I love that. You've got an emoji beside each person's name on your phone. Why?

BRADLEY - Yes, I think it was definitely during my teenage years and it was definitely when I was trying to work out, I was like, this person, I don't know why, but after I see them, I feel deflated and I feel burnt out. And I think it's because I was obviously masking and I wasn't my authentic self around that person, which isn't that person's issue, that's my issue, but there must be something there that's not, maybe boundaries are overstepping or things that are not happening. Contact list, there's a little emoji, but each emoji means, I'm not going to tell you what each emoji means, but each emoji means something different. If I said to someone, oh, I don't want to come out tonight feeling a bit, you know, burnt out, don't feel great, and then they like, you know, pester and they say, oh no, come on, and then they say they turn up to your house and go, no, we're going out, and that would be like a red boundary person. And then you've got a green boundary person where you unmask your authentic self, you feel great after seeing them. And then you have an amber where you're a bit like, not too sure. But yeah, each red, green, amber has a different emoji which is on next to their name.

EMMA - Bradley, you just got married.

BRADLEY - Yes. Exciting.

EMMA - Was it the best day?

BRADLEY - It was amazing. I just couldn't really visualise what the day would look like. All our loved ones come together and it was so special. The weather was warm.

EMMA - What did you do to kind of A, make the day more accessible to you and B, prepare for it as an autistic person?

BRADLEY - The planner wrote out amazing schedule. It was time specific. It was so nice. So I knew everything that I was doing, it said where you were going, who's going to be with you, pictures, even pictures of people who are going to be walking us from one way to another, which is obviously nice to visualise and have their name and not stress about not knowing someone's name or not knowing who they look like or whatever. So definitely everything was on a good plan. Another thing we did was after the dinner and to the evening celebration, we had an hour and 45 minutes just sat with me and Scott in a room in like a little lodge, which was on the side. And that was scheduled and that was always going to happen. and it was definitely needed. We just sat there, lied, then I shut my eyes a little bit and then we got ready for the evening, which was definitely needed to decompress because I didn't want to be burnt out or everything was too much and then not enjoy it. So yeah, afterwards I was knackered. I feel like I may have not even still recovered yet.

EMMA - And you did have, as we said earlier, a lot of tips in your book for managing friendships and those sorts of relationships. Have you any wisdom to impart about managing romantic relationships whilst autistic?

BRADLEY - Yeah, I think if you're starting dating someone and the boundaries are not giving, then maybe there's a discussion needed. So yeah, I definitely would follow the friendship, but I think communication is so vital, especially in moments. Me and Scott have like a little, we have a little, I should put this a bit now. I've unlocked a new thing where I should have put friendship and then relationships. We have a little thing and it's like a, you know, hand squeeze and it's like that obviously means get me the hell out of there. This is awful. So it's just like creating little communications where sometimes you feel like you can't speak or you do shut down and you have those little codes that each of you know and you understand what each of you need which is really nice.

EMMA - Autistically Me is out on the 9th of June in all good places where you can get books. Bradley Riches, it's been a pleasure as always. Thank you so much for being on Access All.

BRADLEY - Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

EMMA - Bradley Riches there and he will be reprising his role as James in the Heartstopper movie in the summer as well.

That's it for this episode. Thank you so much to Beth Rose, Kateryna Pavlyuk and to you for listening as well.

E-mail me accessall@bbc.co.uk. Subscribe on BBC Sounds or if you're outside the UK, it's wherever you get your podcasts from.

And I'll see you next time. Bye.