A WIRRAL mum has spoken of her "disgust" after her disabled son missed out on the chance of meeting Santa Claus  due to a “lack of disabled access” at a north west theme park.

Pearl Phillips, from Wallasey, had hoped to take her twin children Alfie and Gracie to see Santa at the weekend as part of their fourth birthday celebrations.

Having booked tickets online for Gulliver’s World’s Santa Express – during which the mother-of-two says she clearly stated there was a disability within the party – Pearl and her partner Marc Platt had hoped for a day to remember.

But sadly, the day will be remembered for all the wrong reasons as while Gracie was able to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas, cerebral palsy suffered Alfie was forced to miss out after what Pearl described as “disability discrimination”.

She said: “When we got to the gates to go and see Santa we were told that we had to go on a train. I asked what we should do about Alfie’s wheelchair and they told us to leave it and carry Alfie through the queue.

“I asked where we got off and I was told that it was on the other side of the park. They said in extreme circumstances they would bring the chair around.”

While carrying the Elleray Park pupil was possible for short periods, not having immediate access to his wheelchair was a problem and after 30 minutes, the four-year-old was starting to become uncomfortable.

“We didn’t really feel like the queue was moving. My partner was holding Alfie but he has no control over the upper half of his body and was getting unhappy - he was crying and upset,” explained Pearl.

“After half an hour, Marc said he would take Alfie and wait for me and Gracie to see Santa – we ended up queuing for two hours while my son and partner waited in the hail and rain for us.”

Despite phoning Gulliver’s World to complain, Pearl - who paid more than £100 for the family's tickets - says she was offered no sympathy.

“I want a refund for Alfie’s ticket at the very least because he didn’t get to see Santa which I feel is unfair – at no point did staff point us in the direction of disabled access, if there was any.

“Gulliver’s World was our plan B. We had originally planned to go to Disneyland Paris but Alfie was in hospital the week before on life support and it was too risky for him.

“I’m disgusted, but I’m more disgusted at the way I was spoken to on the phone. It’s pretty much disability discrimination – there was no sympathy at all.”

Dean Kimberly, from Gulliver’s World, told the Globe that numerous disabled visitors attend the park each Christmas and systems are in place for wheelchair users  to access the Santa Express.

He said: “There are two options available – either customers can board the train without the wheelchair and we’ll meet them at the grotto terminus with the wheelchair, or we can show them an alternative access route to reach the grotto via wheelchair.

“If this information wasn’t communicated on the day, we can only apologise. Now the matter has been brought to our attention, we are speaking to the customer directly to resolve it.”