A teenager with Down's Syndrome was cruelly mocked online for dancing at a football match.
Tottenham Hotspur fan Neil Markham tweeted a sweet clip of his daughter Ella dancing after Sprus' 0-1 defeat to West Ham.
He captioned the clip, "The result is never the most important thing #COYS".
To Neil's disgust, the clip promoted cruel Twitter trolls to bombard him with sickening messages mocking Ella - including incredible offensive words including "retard" and "mong."
Neil, 43, told Mirror Online: "I tweeted the clip on Saturday and then that night when we got back from the game, people were saying some quite revolting things really.
"It was one of the worst nights of my life."
Commenting on the use of one offensive word in particular, Neil added: "I've had people message me to say that they used to use that word before and they said they will not use it again.
"If one person doesn't, Ella has made a difference."
Neil replied to some of the horrific messages, saying: "What is wrong with people?
"This girl would wish you nothing but happiness. Why do you need to be like this? Contact me directly rather than hiding."
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Neil, father-of-three, said: "As a dad, mother, aunt or whoever - you are very protective of your children and even more so if they are vulnerable.
"I did reply to a few people who sent vile messages - I said 'here's my number, if you have something to say ring me and I will try and explain why you don't have to be like this'."
Some of the accounts removed their posts and even shut down their pages.
Neil said he had taken Ella to a place after the game that played live music, knowing how much she loves to dance.
He added: "She lives for music and dancing, whether it's at home or in the house or a disco.
"After the game they had live music and I made sure we went there because she would love it - she was entertaining everybody around.
"She has two brothers and a father who are football mad so she doesn't have a choice whether to likes it sometimes, but she loves Harry Kane- he's her hero."
The proud father received around 9,000 messages after the tweet, claiming around 99% of them were positive.
He added: "I'm not a snowflake but I will protect my daughter because I'm the only one who can. That is my job."
The video has been viewed more than 1.6million times and has 24,000 likes.
Tottenham legend Graham Roberts tweeted a reply reading: "@NeilMarkham1 and his lovely daughter Ella are guests of mine at my gala dinner in May and I can't wait to spend a special evening with her."
Neil added that the football club had been "great" and reached out to ask what they could do to help and support the family.
He added: "Often these organisations get a bad rep for not caring about customers or fans, but they made a point of contacting me."
Neil said the messages had been reported to Twitter and some had been removed or had accounts shut down.
