A woman paralysed in a parachuting accident is to return home, after negotiating her own care provision.

Penny Roberts, who is pregnant, had been living in her specially adapted home at Steeton until two weeks ago, when she had to move into a residential home. a wrangle with Bradford council over care provision followed. Now she has negotiated her own 24-hour care with Active Assistance - a Kendal-based company - which will provide a carer.

The 35-year-old former nurse, who still teaches and lectures, is confined to a wheelchair after her parachutes became tangled at 13,000 feet over Florida and she fell to Earth.

She accuses Bradford council of taking the cheap option by putting her in a residential home, rather than providing home-care.

"I have been living independently, supported by carers," she says. "But because of my pregnancy I can't take the pills which control the spasms you get as part of quadruplegia."

It was suggested Penny went into a specialist nursing home for a week to rest while her care problem was solved. She was then told she would have to go into long-term residential care because a solution had not been found.

So Penny set about negotiating her own care from the room she occupied at the Currergate Nursing Home, in Skipton Road, Steeton.

"The council were trying to force me into residential care because it will cost them less than me living in my own home with a full-time carer," she says. "The staff at Currergate are lovely and have looked after me, but I need to be independent."

Now Active Assistance and the council have agreed a funding deal to care for Penny. "I feel wonderful," she says. "Now I can go home and prepare for Easter."

Alison O'Sullivan, the council's social services assistant director, told us the council has been working with Penny for two years to ensure she is able to live independently.

"The package of care she receives is very complex and recently broke down after her care needs increased because of her pregnancy," she says. "Staff felt Penny was not coping at home and she was offered care vouchers for a nursing home of her choice, which she decided to use and was admitted on her own initiative.

"We have been particularly concerned about the care she needs during the night and were exploring various options to provide suitable support. However, Penny chose to make her own arrangements for night care and we hope this works."

Penny's neck, shoulder, pelvis and leg were broken in the fall and she suffered a collapsed lung and a fractured skull. Since the accident three years ago she has made several parachute jumps for charity.

Penny became pregnant during an 18-month relationship with a man she met through mutual friends. They wrote to each other and then started going out. "We were engaged and were planning to get married but now we have split up," she says.

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