One-armed presenter is scaring children -parents tell BBC

A disabled CBeebies presenter has been the victim of a disturbing campaign after parents complained that she was scaring toddlers.

Cerrie Burnell, CBeebies presenter

They claimed that host Cerrie Burnell, who was born with one arm, is not suitable to appear on the digital children’s channel. Miss Burnell and co-presenter Alex Winters took over the popular Do and Discover slot and The Bedtime Hour programme last month.

But the decision to hire her has prompted a flurry of complaints to the BBC and on parenting message boards, with some of the posts on the CBeebies website becoming so vicious that they had to be removed.

A BBC spokesman said nine formal complaints about Miss Burnell had been received. But she insisted the new presenter had also received messages of support and that many parents were keen to have a range of people on screen.

Admitting she was upset by the comments, Miss Burnell said: ‘It can only be a good thing that parents are using me as a chance to talk about disability with their children. It just goes to show how important it is to have positive disabled role models on CBeebies and television in general.’

John Knight, of charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, said: ‘Disabled people experience disadvantage and discrimination like this every day, largely through ignorance. This needs to change.’ He added: ‘Understanding disability all comes down to familiarity. The bottom line is that seeing disabled people on television should be the norm, not the exception.’