Sunday, February 22, 2009

Kier apologises for letter to 'Mr Blindman'

Kier Building Maintenance has been forced to apologise after sending a letter to a Hull man which addressed him as 'Mr Blindman'.

Kier, which is working on Hull City Council's Decent Homes programme, wrote to Paul Harris on Wednesday informing him of refurbishment work they would be carrying out on his home.

Harris was only registered as blind late last year.

"I was literally horrified that they can send anything through the post saying 'Dear Mr Blindman' about your disability," he said. "I was just so shocked.

"You wouldn't send a letter to a person who's got Down's Syndrome saying Dear Mr Down's Syndrome would you?"

Kier has apologised, saying the error happened when Harris's disability was mistakenly entered on its database.

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Kier apologises for letter to Mr Blindman

 

A spokesman said: "The letter was part of a routine mail-out about Decent Homes work being carried out in his property.

"Any information relating to customers' personal circumstances are entered into a remarks column on a database.

"Unfortunately, information about Mr Harris' disability was accidentally entered into the name column, which was not noticed prior to the letter being sent."

The spokesman added that an internal investigation was taking place to establish how the mistake occurred and to ensure it did not happen again.






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