Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, who suffers from motor neurone disease, has condemned as "arrogant" and "illogical" the decision by a watchdog to ban an advertisement raising awareness of the condition.
The charity Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Scotland will this week broadcast the hard-hitting advert on its website after it was banned from television by Clearcast, which vets commercials.
The 90-second clip, Sarah's Story, is designed to reflect the suffering of an able bodied person being stripped of their mobility by the disease but was deemed too distressing. It shows a young woman being locked in a room and thrown against a wall before being stripped to her underwear and dragged into a wheelchair as she struggles to breathe. In the final scene, the head of the actress is superimposed over that of a real-life MND sufferer, Sarah Ezekiel.
Advertisement
Woodhead, a Sunday Times columnist, said the ad accurately reflected the suffering of people with the disease. Earlier this year, he said he would rather end his life than be left debilitated by the muscle-wasting disease. MND leads to loss of mobility and difficulties in swallowing and breathing. It is incurable and kills 120 people in Scotland every year. "The advert is graphic, but it needs to be graphic to alert people to the suffering experienced by patients," he said.
Agnes Johnstone, widow of the Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone, who died of MND three years ago, said her husband would have found the advert distressing, adding: "He wanted to remain positive. He would not have wanted to see this."