“The Entitlement Card, Sir..?”

“Sorry. We’re no longer accepting that one.”

Markus Wilder, curator of the animal collection, disputed the family's claim there was no options for their son at the cafe.

'We have a menu of 55 items and there are only ten of them that contain soya or dairy,' he said. 'Any of our cooked meals he would have been fine to eat; we have jacket potatoes, burgers...'

'We're only a fairly small park, and we have fairly limited seating so we have a policy that you cannot eat outside food from outside in the restaurant. It applies across the board.

'The trouble is if we let one person have a packed lunch, then others see it and start to ask why they have been refused.

'It just gets very awkward for us because many people and children have special dietary requirements these days.

'In this case, I spoke to the family and did offer them an empty room nearby where they could still eat indoors, but the mother, in particular, still wasn't happy.

'We also have covered areas outside for people who bring their own food.

'We are looking at expanding the food range to accommodate more needs but our animals must come first and we can't direct funding away from them.'

Good for you!

I can only imagine what a monumental pain in the arse it must be to have a family wave the disability card in your face, demand preferential treatment, reject your offer of compromise and storm off to pull sad faces in the media.

These people never compromise – they want what they want, and they behave like sulky toddlers when they don’t get it.

They aren’t going to be the ones having to deal with the hordes of chavs pulling packed lunches out of their rucksacks & triumphantly claiming “You can’t say nuffin’, ‘cos ‘e’s got allergies, innit?”, that’ll be the harassed catering staff.

The family left the zoo near Canterbury, Kent after just two hours and have since vowed never to return.

I expect the staff all high-fived each other on hearing this…