30-year-old Ketan Aggarwal from Southall, London, works as an administrator.

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Ketan is also on the autism spectrum and was discriminated at his local gym for it.

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It all started when Ketan attended a spin class at a Virgin Active in Uxbridge, London.

During the class, Ketan and another gym member said that the music was too slow for the routine being taught. The instructor responded by yelling, “Don’t tell me how to do my job!”

The instructor then shouted at Ketan a number of times throughout the class, calling him ‘stupid’ in front of 30 or so people.

After the class, Ketan filed a complaint with the gym, Virgin Active, but no action was taken against the employee.

Ketan decided to take matters into his own hands, and sued Virgin Active for disability discrimination.

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Ketan went to his local library and used online resources to teach himself about the law on disability discrimination. It took him two years to learn everything he needed to represent himself in court.

Ketan won the case and Virgin Active was ordered to pay him costs, compensation, and to give a formal apology.

Ketan said, “Calling someone with a mental disability ‘stupid’ is similar to mocking a guy in a wheelchair. If I was that stupid I wouldn’t have been able to successfully pursue the claim against a solicitor of a billion-pound company. It was two years coming and it was hard work.”

“I’m not a legal professional and I had to do a huge amount of paperwork. I had to live in the library, picking up law from the books, and getting templates for submitting paperwork from the internet.”

“It was worth it though. It wasn’t about the money it was about the principle.”

Ketan wasn’t diagnosed with autism until he was an adult, though he said that he had always been ‘socially awkward.’

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Ketan was compensated £1,200 as well as £190 in costs and was given a formal written apology.

The court even ordered Virgin Active to train their staff and consultants better.

Well done, Ketan!