A teenage girl with Down’s Syndrome – who was trolled for dancing – appeared on This Morning with her father who slammed trolls.
There came a heartwarming moment when Ella interrupted presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby to say ‘I love my daddy’.
Neil Markham, of Banbury, Oxfordshire put a video of his 16-year-old daughter Ella dancing at the club’s new stadium on Twitter.
Ella’s dancing video was trolled online and her father put his phone number online and challenged trolls to speak to him directly.
One person even called him but to hurl more abuse.
Mr. Markham, 43, and Ella, 16, appeared on This Morning after their story went viral. Mr. Markham told the ITV programme about the phone call he received:
‘I can’t tell you on here what they said. They called a couple of times and I believe they were linked to one of the troll accounts.’
‘They were abusive, but I cannot have it both ways; I can’t put my number out there and complain when someone rings me like that.’
‘I didn’t put it out there in an aggressive way. It was to talk about what happened and tell the person how they made me feel.’
He added: ‘It’s very difficult but from a football sense, they should be banned from every ground. They are no better than people who shout racist abuse.’
The trolling received a backlash online and Mr. Markham said that he also received messages of support from strangers.
He said: ‘Some of the comments I have had are from friends I have known for years. Some of them have been amazing.’
‘I’ve had 20,000 and all of them positive, with 19,500 from people I have never met before.’
‘At the time I wondered if I had done the right thing and I think about that and this tells me maybe I did.’
Ella told the presenters that her dream job is to be an X Factor judge and she loves Harry Kane because ‘he is my hero’.