A mother has complained to Cineworld after her daughter, who has Down's Syndrome, was kicked out of a children's film for laughing too loudly.
Ema Louise Brown took her seven-year-old daughter Sienna and nine-year-old son Shaun to watch The Croods, an animated comedy, on Broad Street in Birmingham.
Ema Louise Brown called for a boycott of Cineworld
However despite the whole theatre laughing uproariously, she said she was surprised to be approached by an usher.
She posted on the Facebook page for Down Syndrome Awareness later to explain what happened, writing: "Sienna was laughing her head off, as were the other children, but we were asked to leave by a very rude member of staff because she was apparently laughing too loud!
"I said to him she has down's and is quite loud at times, but was only laughing, and he said to me 'well I need you to leave.'"
The Birmingham broad street branch
After Ms Brown asked to speak to his manager, another member of staff came over and repeated their request for the family to go.
Though Ms Brown told them they were guilty of discrimination, the manager ignored her pleas and walked off, while the first member of staff reportedly replied: "You shouldn't take your child to the cinema."
She said she then lost her temper, and shouted at the man: "Because my child has downs and is loud with her laugh, because she doesnt understand she needs to laugh quietly, I shouldn't take her out?"
Calling on other members of the group to boycott the chain, she said she had repeatedly complained but no one had replied.
However after she posted her story on several Facebook groups, including Cineworld's own page, social media users rallied on her behalf.
Cineworld later posted "To all those who have commented, we were extremely sorry to hear about Ema Louise Brown's experience with her family on Saturday. We are arranging for her to return to our cinema later this week to meet our senior management team and share views on how we can handle these situations more sensitively."
However some Facebook users were not pacified, with one writing: "Handle these situations! That girl was shamed through no fault of her own. The staff had no right doing what they did, discriminating because of her disability. Let's hope that they can make it up to this child who probably feels as though she has done something wrong when she hasn't! Something like this could easily halt the progress she has made and stop her wanting to go to social gatherings for fear of being thrown out! Hope the staff involved are proud of themselves!!"