‘I spent five years battling to bring my disabled son back home – then was banned from telling his story. Now I want answers’

As he speaks, there’s fear in Grant McPherson’s eyes.

“You won’t make me go back, Dad. Horrible. Nasty. They hurt me dad. Stay here.”

Grant, 48, is in the living room of the specially adapted house he shares with his father Leonard McPherson in Wolverhampton. He has cerebral palsy, sight impairment, epilepsy, a learning disability and uses a wheelchair due to paralysis following a spinal operation as a child.

Grant and his father are happy. But they have endured years of heartache in their bid to be reunited at their family home.

Leonard is one of hundreds of people across the country who have faced ongoing battles to advocate for their vulnerable loved ones in care after raising concerns about their treatment.

During five years trapped in council-sponsored accommodation, Leonard says Grant suffered physically and mentally. Among the roll call of injuries, Grant suffered a severely broken leg, contracted two life threatening infections and was burnt twice – the second time so severely that he spent three months in hospital.

But, as Grant was moved between different council care, it was his father Leonard who was put under scrutiny when he asked to remove Grant from care and take him home instead. Incredibly, Leonard was also gagged with legal orders, meaning he could not talk publicly about his struggle to bring his son home.

Leonard was on the cusp of being restricted to seeing Grant for just one hour a week – an issue the government has now vowed to crack down on – when a judge finally agreed that Grant could return home to live with his father.

This is not an isolated case, with concerns raised nationally about draconian conditions placed on parents and guardians, preventing them from advocating for their children, with restrictions often put on visiting rights.

Earlier this year, the government vowed to crack down on care companies and councils that ban families from visiting vulnerable relatives and promised to improve visitation rights.

The chief inspector of the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England, also admitted that care companies who look after people with learning disabilities need to be inspected “more consistently and more regularly”.

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Source: The Independent, 11 July 2026