London prisoner with muscle-wasting condition claims he has to crawl on floor

A prisoner with a muscle-wasting condition accused of taking part in a Palestine Action protest claims he has been forced to crawl around the jail – including to get medicine – because of lack of treatment and a wheelchair. Umer Khalid, who is being held at Wormwood Scrubs in west London, awaiting trial for alleged involvement in last year’s break-in at RAF Brize Norton, also alleges he was left in his cell when the prison was evacuated because of a fire alarm and went 26 days without a shower while waiting for a shower chair to be provided. In an interview from prison, the 22-year-old from Stockport, who has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy and is not due to stand trial until January, compared his predicament to that of an injured stray dog he saw when visiting Pakistan. “It genuinely broke my heart,” he said. “I felt so sad because no one’s going to care about it, it’s just going to have to crawl with this injury. It feels worse than that because at least when I looked at that dog, I felt sympathy. “I’m literally on the floor, crawling on my hand, but then I can’t even use my right arm because I’ve fallen on my shoulder multiple times because they’ve not given me a wheelchair, so I can’t even crawl properly. “I’m not embarrassed because at the end of the day I’m not the one who should be embarrassed, but it’s so dehumanising.” Khalid says the muscles in his arms and legs have wasted away such that skin is hanging off his bones, a description confirmed by recent visitors. …