A barber who placed a sign in his shop charging extra to cut the hair of ‘special needs boys under 15’ says he had no idea it was offensive, as he didn’t even know what ‘special needs’ meant.

Shwan Kadir, 49, has come under fire after introducing the extra charge at his Ranya unisex salon in Sutton, London.

Facebook mums are angry with him and people are DM’ing him abuse on Instagram…

Barber Shwan, who lives with his three children in Sutton, said: ‘The sign being there was by mistake. I didn’t know that these words were against the law.

‘We have an autism specialist here and we had no idea. If she had told me that the word was wrong then I would have just taken it down.’

‘I made a mistake, and I fixed it, I am only human. I am not sure what more I can do.

‘I’m saddened by the way this has been taken. Me personally and my staff have always done our best to be strong members of the community and we love to speak with you all on your visits.’

He added: ‘The hate has affected me, but the local people know what our business is like.

‘They have defended me a lot online. I have received thousands of supportive messages from our customers today.

‘There are a lot of kids who don’t like getting their hair cut. If some customers take more than an hour we may charge them an extra two pounds, but this is extremely rare.

‘We are very good at dealing with kids who have different disabilities.

‘We have customers come from all across England because we are the only ones they trust to cut their hair and other places have refused them.’

The barber has since blacked out the special needs section on the shop sign…

Sounds like it was an honest mistake? I mean, surely if Shwan had any idea that this was offensive in the slightest, he wouldn’t have put the sign up in the first place. Seems he’s also misspelt ‘Style’ on the price list, so maybe the guy is linguistically challenged. Which I guess can lead to errors like charging special needs boys £5 extra for the same haircut as everyone else?

Well, as inexplicably dumb as that might sound, I’d say it was unintentional. Don’t think the guy needs his business ruining over it, does he?

Fortunately for Shwan and Ranya salon, their Google Reviews are still looking solid despite this monumental c0ck-up:

Earlier this week, a school in Scotland came under fire for offering 2 picture options for the class photo; photos with or without the special needs kids in them. Now that one’s a little harder to explain…