Mum rages at sick trolls who stole disabled son’s pictures for ‘like and type Amen’ posts on Facebook
Colette Flanagan is warning others about the hurtful scam after Daire's photograph went viral
STOLEN photos of a seven-year-old boy born with a genetic deformity were used by online scammers to get likes and shares on Facebook.
A fake post of Daire Flanagan went viral with the message: “Today is his first day at school and he was told that no-one would give him a ‘like’ because of his illness.”
Users were told to "like and type Amen" under the picture which reached 6,000 likes and 900 shares.
His furious mum Colette she felt "sick" when she discovered the online con about her son - who was given just two days to live when he was born with Apert syndrome.
Speaking to the Sun Online, she said: "I was shaking and crying thinking 'how dare they use my son in this sick way to gain likes?'.
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";I have found eight fake posts so far and every day we are finding another one.
"It's just sickening."
The scam involves fraudsters using fake or stolen photos to make some easy cash - or even just to boost their own ego.
Colette, from Belfast, added: "I felt like I had let him down its my job to keep him safe and this is something I have no control over.
"It's been shared over 900 times and one post has 5.8k likes
"Some of the comments weren't nice I didn't read them very much as I was disgusted at grown ups behaviour towards an innocent 7 year old boy."
Daire's severe condition affects the skull - giving him an abnormally shaped head at birth.
Just one in 100,000 are diagnosed with the life-threatening disease, which has forced Daire to undergo dozens of operations in his short life.
Colette was given the heads up about the sick post by a friend after asking her own followers to "stop liking and typing Amen".
Despite efforts to remove the posts which contain cruel comments, Colette fears there is no way of stopping the fraudsters.
She has reported the scam to police, Facebook and the NSPCC.
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