Tesco sued over tyre-pumping row

Mrs Crowly has fibro myalgia, which affects her muscles and causes fatigue

A woman with disabilities is suing Tesco because it will not allow staff to pump up her car tyres.

Jenni Crowly, 51, from Connah's Quay, Flintshire, told Mold County Court staff at the Mold store refused to help her because they were not insured.

She is now suing the supermarket giant under the Disability Discrimination Act saying the rules make it impossible for her to use the free air service.

Tesco said it had an arrangement with a tyre shop to help disabled drivers.

Mrs Crowly has fibro myalgia, which affects her muscles, causes pain and fatigue, and she has arthritis requiring regular cortisone injections.

She had difficulty pumping up her tyres because she could not bend down and maintain the pressure on the nozzle without suffering great pain, she told the court.

Mrs Crowly said that for a couple of years her tyre pressures had been checked by staff at the Tesco filling station at Broughton but staff at the Mold store had refused.

On 10 March 2007, she was refused assistance by staff member Lynn Dutton who said that it was a matter of insurance.

Mrs Dutton told the court she was aware of a policy not to pump anyone's tyres but she had since been informed that it was for health and safety reasons.

Rob Parkin, the store manager at the time said a mediation meeting had been held and it had been agreed that staff could hold the hose to prevent any pressure on the customer from the hose re-coiling.

It had an arrangement with a local tyre shop to check the tyres of anyone who had difficulty and Mrs Crowly had been offered that.

Company policy

Richard Jackson, Tesco's petrol stations operations manager for the UK, told the court there were clear health and safety reasons why staff should not pump up motorists' tyres and that had been company policy since 2001.

Updated policies to that effect were now being sent to petrol stations, he said.

But Mrs Crowly's solicitor Bernie Culshaw said he could not see any distinction between agreeing to hold the hose than holding the nozzle. It was the customer who set the machine.

Solicitor advocate Toby Starr, for Tesco, said that the store did not provide a tyre pumping service to anyone. It was a facility and not a service.

Tesco was not a garage and if it inflated tyres then it would have to have extra trained staff in order to do so and substantially alter its business, he told the court.

The company did not help anyone to pump their tyres and was not being discriminatory, he added.

Tesco would also have to rethink its policy on a national scale if the judgement went against them, Mr Starr said.

District Judge Viv Reaves reserved judgement and stressed that it was a small claims court dealing with an individual claim, although he said he accepted that there "may be wider ramifications".