Mum hits back after Instagram removes photo of son missing an eye

A mum in the UK is fighting back after Instagram removed a photo of her son, who only has one eye, from her account because it was deemed inappropriate.

The photo of 12-year-old Harry Beswick showed him snuggling up next to his mum, Charlie Beswick, without his prosthetic eye.

Harry has Goldenhar syndrome and was born missing his left eye, eye socket, nostril and ear.

Ms Breswick runs a blog documenting her life as she raises her twins sons, Oliver and Harry. On the site she explains that Harry is "non-verbal, has global learning delay and autism".

"So life is as challenging as it is rewarding at times, " she wrote.

Ms Breswick runs her Instagram account alongside her blog, and frequently posts photos of her sons.

She said this is the second time a photo of her son without his eye in has been removed by the social media site.

"I appreciate that he looks different and people might not want to look at it, but that's not Instagram's decision," she told BBC.

"For Instagram to decide Harry's face isn't suitable is disgusting. It does feel like discrimination to me.

"It's my son's face and I'm very proud to be showing him off."

Ms Beswick took to Twitter to voice her outrage over the incident in a tweet that now has more than 115,000 engagements.

"Someone is reporting my son's face & #Instagram agree saying it doesn't meet their guidelines before removing it. RT (retweet) to support me in this!" she wrote, alongside the original photo.

Ms Beswick said she is yet to receive an apology from Instagram about the incident.

In an email the company told her it had its "policy enforcement team review the removal and confirmed the photo was incorrectly removed".

"We've restored the photo and will take steps to make sure it isn't removed again."