Sophie Morgan has recalled a shocking incident that occured in a past relationship during today's edition of Loose Women.
Sophie gave examples of how disabled people can be vulnerable when it comes to being subjected to physical and emotional abuse and shared her own experience - telling the Loose Women audience how she was once 'left in the sea' for hours' in a past relationship.
The award-winning disability advocate, 37, spoke on the ITV show ahead of her new documentary airing, in which she investigates how disabled abuse victims are being 'let down by police' on tonight's installment of Dispatches on Channel 4.
Sophie was just 18 when she was involved in a car crash that left her instantly paralysed from the chest down in 2003.
The star was hospitalised and rehabilitated for about three months and now uses a wheelchair as a result of a spinal injury.
Speaking with co-stars Janet Street-Porter, Jane Moore and Coleen Nolan on this week's first offering of Loose Women, Sophie explained how disabled people can suffer abuse from their romantic partners.
"Say for example, I get into an argument with a boyfriend and they take my wheelchair away from me which would leave me stuck and dependant on them - very intimating.
"Or we have a row they put things out of reach.... I got left in the sea once for hours, so there was specific abuse around the fact I had a physical disability but then there was the tolerating of certain behaviours that I tolerated because I have a disability.
She continued to say: "I had internalised this message 'you're disabled it's all that... it's not that you deserve it but just get on with it'."
Tonight's episode of Dispatches on Channel 4 will see Sophie exploring the shocking statistic that one in seven disabled people experience domestic violence compared to one in 20 non-disabled people.
"Some of the stories we heard I don’t think I will ever forget. It was really heartbreaking," said in an interview early this month when discussing the upcoming programme.
"We spoke to various survivors to try and unpack how abuse affects people with different disabilities in different ways."
Speaking earlier this year, Sophie compared the "two different lives" she has led, as both a disabled and non-disabled person, and confessed she doesn't live her life "with regret or remorse".
"Non-disabled and disabled are very different experiences," she told OK! magazine in March.
"It does feel like two different lives. The person I became after my injury is very different to the person I was. I’ve grown up, obviously, as I was a kid, but those two realities, personalities, identities definitely feel very split."
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV and ITVHub
*If you need help, call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 - it's run by charity Refuge and the free number is in operation 24 hours a day
