02 February 2023 , 22:56
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A British influencer has been slammed for a “vile” TikTok in which she mocked disabled children and called them “vegetables”.
Kerrie Baker, known as Kerrie Essex on TikTok, made the horrific comments during a livestream with her partner Danny.
The two were discussing abortion when the conversation turned to disabled children.
It was then Kerrie began to pull faces to mock severely disabled youngsters before they both burst into fits of laughter throughout the video.
She said: "Unless you've not consented or your baby is literally going to be a vegetable and have no life then fine. A vegetable, yeah, you know what I'm saying - can't walk, can't talk, just sat there. Like they put them on live and they're just sat there like that...."
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She followed this by pulling another face in an attempt to mock disabled children as Danny continued to laugh.
Kerrie laughed as well before telling her viewers “'if you don't like it, f*** off”.
Several times throughout the video Kerrie made faces as the pair laughed.
Following wide condemnation for their disgraceful comments, a petition was launched to try and get TikTok to remove her account - which had amassed over 500,000 followers.
The petition was launched on Change.Org by user Donna Willis and it received over 8,000 signatures in just a matter of days.
The petition says: "Kerrie is a female on TikTok with a huge following. She was on live abusing disabled children, calling them cabbages, and ugly, hanging b*******, and no one should bring them into the world.
"She then went on to hysterically laugh about her mimicking of disabled kids. This is disgusting and it has affected millions of people on TikTok."
A number of people on Facebook then began sharing a message urging others to sign the petition.
It said: "This vile person who has many accounts - Kerrie Essex/Kerrie Essex Baker has over 500k followers on TikTok and nearly 100k on Instagram and believes it's acceptable to mock disabled children.
"This is a mother, and one of her children is autistic. She has called them cabbage children, vegetables, ugly and said she would give it up for adoption if she had a severely disabled child.
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"We cannot stand back and let people like this have a large platform and get away with such disgusting comments."
After the backlash the two desperately tried to backpedal their horrific comments in an apology video.
In the video Kerrie claimed she was “utterly sorry” and added it “takes a lot” for her to apologise.
She added: "A wise woman told me today 'it doesn't make you strong being a hard face, it makes you strong owning your s*** and being sorry.
"I genuinely want to say I'm so sorry for how many people I've affected. I've spoken to parents today and I'm genuinely sorry at the way I made people feel. Every single thing that I've said, that was vile and horrible."
She went on to claim that her comments “ain’t the person” she is.
She added: "You don't have to forgive me. I want you to go to bed tonight knowing I'm genuinely sorry for what I've said."
Danny also posted a video in which he apologised, saying: "It should have been worded different on the other video and Kerrie has apologised for that, we never meant to cause anyone any hurt or upset."
The original video has since disappeared from the platform and Kerrie's TikTok and Instagram accounts can no longer be accessed.
It is not clear whether she took them down herself or if they were deactivated by the social media firms.