London: In what has been described as an epic victory, an autistic gym-goer who was branded ‘stupid’ by staff at a Virgin Active club spin class, has successfully sued them for disability discrimination — representing himself in court. Ketan Aggarwal, 30, proved he was anything but stupid by hitting the library books to learn law and single-handedly beat the multi-million pound company’s legal team. He was in a spin class when he agreed with a fellow cyclist the music was too slow — prompting the instructor to apparently yell ‘don’t tell me how to do my job.’
When the class ended the instructor ‘shouted’ at him again — twice calling him ‘stupid’ down the microphone in front of 30 people, legal documents alleged. Mr Aggarwal complained, but when Virgin Active refused to punish the worker he took them to court. The administrator borrowed books from the library, scoured online articles on discrimination, and consulted previous cases to prepare for his court room battle. Representing himself against Virgin Active’s lawyer, he single-handedly argued he had been the victim of disability harassment.
