Pressure is mounting on transport providers and other companies to improve access for people with disabilities after the Paralympian Anne Wafula Strike revealed in the Guardian that she had been forced to wet herself on a train because the accessible toilet was out of order.

Wafula Strike, a British wheelchair racer and a board member of UK Athletics, has called for companies to be fined if they don’t provide the facilities for disabled people that legislation requires.

Fellow Paralympic athletes, including the TV presenter and wheelchair basketball player Ade Adepitan, backed her call for change.

Adepitan told the Guardian that he too had been forced to urinate in a train carriage when the disabled toilet was not working. He acknowledged that it was slightly easier for men to improvise than women.

“I have had to pee into a bottle in the past when the accessible toilet wasn’t working,” he said. “I would carefully arrange a coat over my knees under the train table and pee into a bottle held underneath my coat.”

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He said that he endured one particularly agonising train journey after returning from filming in India in 1999 suffering from a stomach upset only to discover there was no working disabled toilet. “Having to hold on until I got off the train was just terrible,” he said. “Not having accessible toilets available has happened to me more times than is tolerable.

“A lot of these companies are just paying lip service. Really they are just taking the mickey. It’s a standing joke with me and my friends who are also wheelchair users when we go to a restaurant or bar and see that the disabled toilet isn’t usable because it is being used as a storeroom. There was one place we used to go to in Chiswick where they used to store bicycles in the disabled toilet.”

He supported Wafula Strike’s call for fines to be imposed on organisations failing to provide suitable accessible facilities.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ade Adepitan: ‘I have had to pee into a bottle in the past when the accessible toilet wasn’t working.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

“If there is no punishment and no fines nothing will change. The biggest problem is the people who are enforcing the rules who don’t do enough to enforce them, and the able-bodied public who use disabled toilets and park in disabled parking bays. Companies need to be attacked in their pockets and by naming and shaming them if they don’t provide the right facilities.”

Adepitan said that the whole issue of travelling with a disability was a minefield.

“When I was about 15 there were no accessible buses for me and my mates who also used wheelchairs to travel on,” he said. “So we went to High Street North in East Ham and blockaded the road with our wheelchairs for several hours, demanding accessible buses. It worked and a few months later the 101 bus was introduced which was an accessible bus.

“I think what Anne has done should be like a beacon and a message to other disabled people not to be afraid to speak out. She’s right that we don’t speak out enough. We are entitled to everything that everyone else is entitled to.”

The Paralympic athlete and wheelchair user Dzaier Neil also supported Wafula Strike’s call for sanctions for companies and organisations that fail to provide equality of access to people with disabilities.

“I think things are just getting worse,” she said. “Getting round at all as a disabled person is a challenge. Getting on a bus is very difficult and some London boroughs have their own disabled badge systems so that the universal blue badges can’t be used in those areas if you’re not a resident in the borough.”

Wafula Strike said she had been overwhelmed by tweets of support since going public.

“The sad thing is the number of people who have contacted me since I went public and said that what happened to me on the train also happened to them,” she said. “One woman whose job is a psychologist said that she gets dehydrated when she travels by train because she is scared to drink anything at all in case there is no toilet available on the train.

“I’ve learnt that if you speak up, the world does listen. As disabled people our voices can be weak, but I’m optimistic that now our voices are being heard and we will see change.”

Her MP, Robert Halfon, described her treatment as a “totally unacceptable set of events for the 21st century”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Signs indicating disabled access at Green Park underground station in London. Photograph: P.D Amedzro / Alamy/Alamy

Sarah Evans, and employment lawyer at Slater and Gordon, said: “It would be interesting to see if the fines that Anne has proposed would encourage compliance among organisations.

“Disability discrimination is not just against people with physical disabilities but also those who suffer from mental illness. As practitioners we are aware that disability legislation doesn’t always work.

“The onus in legislation is on the disabled person getting their rights enforced rather than the employer. In the workplace it is more difficult for employees to bring disability discrimination cases now than it used to be because of the fees regime introduced into the employment tribunal. This makes it less likely that individuals will pursue their rights.”

She said that while things were better for people with disabilities than they were 20 years ago there was still a way to go before equality was achieved.

“The obligations on employers are quite low – all they have to do is make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities.”

Faryal Velmi, director Transport for All, an organisation that provides advice for disabled travellers in London, said: “The humiliation that Anne went through is unfortunately a regular occurrence for disabled and older people travelling on our railways.

“Transport for All has heard of many scandalous stories similar to hers and we know of people who have stopped travelling by train altogether after losing their confidence.

“Anne’s case is another example of how we are treated as second-class citizens when travelling. Train companies that make handsome profits for their shareholders need to invest resources in ensuring that accessible toilets – and indeed all toilets facilities – are kept open and maintained for all customers.”