My pal James Medhurst, who has died aged 45 of Covid-19, was an employment lawyer and an eloquent campaigner for the rights of disabled individuals. His private expertise illustrated each the obstacles that autistic individuals face but in addition the precious contribution they will make.
James was born in Studying to Brian Medhurst, a maths trainer, and his spouse, Cathy (nee Plytas), an accountant. Academically gifted as a toddler, at St Bartholomew’s college, Newbury, in Berkshire, he received a spot at Cambridge College to check arithmetic, starting in 1993.
However he suffered from despair whereas there and needed to take a yr out, after which he returned to the college, switched from maths to historical past and accomplished his diploma in that topic. Later he realised that his situation defined his social difficulties, though he was formally identified as autistic solely in 2004.
Regardless of his sturdy tutorial report, James discovered regulation companies had been reluctant to make use of somebody with a prognosis of autism and a historical past of despair, though they weren’t at all times prepared to confess this overtly. Nevertheless, certainly one of James’s biggest qualities was his perseverance and he refused to surrender, finally securing a coaching contract with Slater & Gordon in London in 2012 and later shifting to turn out to be an employment lawyer in Birmingham with Fieldfisher.
Final yr he started working remotely for the regulation agency Royds Withy King in Oxford, and he was with them at his demise.
James was a superb author and finally started to supply a daily column for the New Statesman journal, writing powerfully about all features of incapacity and discrimination. Within the final months of his life he appeared on the BBC and within the mainstream press as an skilled on employment points regarding the pandemic.
An incredible fan of quizzes, James spent a number of years writing questions for the BBC’s The Weakest Hyperlink and would produce elaborate quizzes to entertain his associates at birthdays and Christmas gatherings. He cherished sport, particularly the Olympics, and went to as many occasions as he might.
James loved staff sports activities, enjoying for Highbury korfball membership in north London after which Bec korfball membership in south London and likewise serving on the committee of the London Korfball Affiliation. He was decided to run the London Marathon, and devised an unorthodox weight loss plan and coaching routine (together with delegating lengthy coaching runs to different individuals), in addition to elevating 1000’s of kilos through his fundraising quizzes earlier than finishing the 2007 occasion.
He’s survived by his father and his brother, Richard.
