Anne Wafula Strike has claimed she was forced to wet herself on a train after a lack of accessible toilet ©Getty Images

British wheelchair racer and UK Athletics board member Anne Wafula Strike has claimed she was left "humiliated" after wetting herself on a train when the company failed to provide an accessible toilet on the journey.

Wafula Strike took a three-hour train journey from Nuneaton station to London Stansted Airport, where she was looking to connect to her home town of Harlow in Essex.

She had been travelling home on the CrossCountry train, following a meeting of the UK Athletics Board.

"After half an hour I felt I needed to use the rest room and to my amazement the toilet was boarded up with a sign saying it was out of order," she told the BBC.

"I waited for the ticket master to come and she was very sympathetic and said she would get me off at the next stop so I could use the toilet there and then they would put me back on.

"But at that particular station there was nobody on the platform to help me.

"The next possible platform was Peterborough.

"Between me asking for help and getting to Peterborough I just had to do it, I ended up wetting myself."

Wafula Strike, who claimed she had not been informed the toilet was out of order before her journey, said the experience left her feeling humiliated.

Anne Wafula Strike is a wheelchair racer and member of the UK Athletics Board ©Getty Images
Anne Wafula Strike is a wheelchair racer and member of the UK Athletics Board ©Getty Images

The 42-year-old competed for Kenya at Athens 2004, which saw her become the first ever wheelchair racer from East Africa to take part in the Paralympic Games.

She switched allegiance after becoming a member of ParalympicsGB in 2007 having settled in Essex with her husband and son.

Wafula Strike has been recognised with a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to disability sport and serves as a patron of several charities supporting the rights of people with disabilities.

She told The Guardian her decision to go public with the story was in an attempt to "bring about change for other people with disabilities who want to contribute to society but are prevented from doing so".

"Clearly the circumstances of Mrs Strike's journey were unacceptable,” a CrossCountry spokesperson told the BBC.

"This is the first time we're aware of such a situation ever happening on one of our trains and we are still investigating how all our established procedures for caring for a customer in a wheelchair could have failed so terribly."