Disabled man's anger at ticket blunder

Lee Colbran, who uses a wheelchair, ordered a ticket months in advance to sit with his family in the disabled section for the Bear In The Big Blue House show.

However, when he arrived with his daughter Millie, three, and partner Clare, 27, they were told the booking had not been processed.

Mr Colbran spent 90 minutes arguing with staff after being told he would have to watch from the aisles and missed the show completely.

Now he has fired off a furious letter to Ticketmaster, with whom he booked the tickets.

The tickets for the show on Saturday cost £90 and a taxi to the centre was another £72.

Mr Colbran, 33, of A'Becket Gardens, Worthing, said: "I've been in a wheelchair for 12 years and it is a prerequisite to ensure there is space for a wheelchair when we go out.

"We got to the Brighton Centre with Millie, Clare and three friends and there was no space for me.

"I was stuck out at the end of the aisle, blocking children's views. I felt like a plum.

"I went to get a seating change but I left the tickets with Clare and had to wait for the interval to get them.

"I missed the show and Millie was wondering where I was throughout it. It completely spoiled the evening.

"I was gutted. It makes me feel inadequate to see all the other dads and their little girls and I'm nowhere near mine."

Brighton Centre operations manager Jacquie Rogers said: "I've worked here for 15 years and have never known Ticketmaster to get it wrong.

"When someone is booking and says they are in a wheelchair, Ticketmaster puts them straight through to us and we deal with them directly.

"This is a very, very unusual error and we have already started investigating it to make sure it doesn't happen again."

She said since the centre's wheelchair allocation was doubled two years ago, visitors who had forgotten to book a wheelchair seat could always be accommodated.

She continued: "We had some prime seats we could have moved the family to but Mr Colbran didn't want to move them.

"I also offered him complimentary tickets to any show of his choice at the centre but he refused that as well."

Ms Rogers said she would contact Mr Colbran as soon as she had investigated the matter with the venue's box office.

Mr Colbran was left disabled by injuries received during a trip to Spain when he was 21.

He woke up in a hospital bed paralysed, unable to communicate and with no memory of the night before.

The mystery of his injuries has never been explained.

Spanish police said he must have fallen from a balcony.

This did not explain why he had a black eye and he remains convinced he was attacked.

Mr Colbran said: "I was in a coma. When I came to, I realised instantly I could not move my arms and legs."

When he returned to England, doctors told him he would never walk again.

Mr Colbran was taken to the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he began to realise how much his life had changed.

Two vertebrae in Mr Colbran's neck were shattered, leaving him paralysed from the waist down.

However, his consultant, David Grundy, confirmed his suspicions, telling him his injuries were consistent with an assault.

Mr Colbran said: "I was lucky to get to that stage. I was not lucky to be in that position but it could have been much worse.

"The first question I asked was, 'Can I have children?'.

"The answer was no. It was something that had always been important to me."

Mr Colbran's lowest point came when the boss at the electrical retailer where he had worked before his injury told him he could not return to work.

He left the hospital in 1992 and met Clare in a Worthing nightclub in 1999.

Their best news came when Clare told him she was expecting his child.

A spokesman for Ticketmaster said: "If somebody asks us for wheelchair access seats we wouldn't continue the order.

"We would give them a phone number to ring the venue and organise it with them directly."