A four-year-old girl is ‘traumatised’ after a man screamed abuse at her in her wheelchair and told her she ‘shouldn’t have been born’.

Quinn Ross, who has a rare childhood condition called Perthes’ disease, was on her way to school with her mum Emma and big brother Alex, 10, when the thug began ‘yelling in her face’.

Emma, 32, said the abuse in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, was ‘appalling’.

She said: ‘The man was yelling in her face, saying she shouldn’t have been born, she was a drain on the NHS, a drain on society and that I should have had her aborted if I’d known she was going to be disabled.

‘I pushed him away, power-walked off to school and it was the school who phoned the police.’

Quinn, whose condition affects her hip bone making it agonising to walk, is now in counselling after telling her mum she didn’t want to be seen in her wheelchair.

Emma added: ‘Quinn is now scared of men and doesn’t like going out in her wheelchair. It left her feeling very angry at the world, but we’ve had a lot of support.’

It is hoped that Quinn will one day not need the wheelchair but she can currently only walk 10 to 15 steps at a time.

Police are treating the attack last month as a disability hate crime.

PC Terasa Holden said: ‘No-one should worry about leaving home and facing abuse, particularly a little girl who is in too much pain to walk to school because of a rare medical condition.

‘My colleagues and I have worked to support Quinn and her family and hope other people will come forward and report this kind of crime.

‘We want people to know that we take all reports of hate crime very seriously and will always investigate.’

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