A mother who mistakenly parked in a disabled bay was outraged after returning to find a rude note on her car which triggered her son, who has autism, to suffer an anxiety attack.

Eleanor Jamison, 40, was visiting Stowmarket to take her twin children, aged 10, to a music group to help combat their anxiety when she received the printed message.

The part-time cleaner says she was running late and did not realise she had parked in a disabled spot in Ipswich Street car park, which she claims wasn't very obviously marked, until she returned.

"I made an innocent mistake and felt really bad about it once I'd realised," admitted Eleanor, who also suffers from the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

"But it was really quite upsetting to be called the 'c-word' and for my children to see it."

When Eleanor returned to her car, she found a note underneath her windscreen wipers which read: "I'm using this parking space to pop into a shop or use a cashpoint. I'm not disabled just a ****."

Eleanor suffers from autism and is entitled to a blue-badge, but says she "has always managed without one".

"With resources scarce, I haven't bothered applying as I always think there are plenty of people who need it much more than me," said the mother-of-two.

But the note didn't just upset Eleanor, it also caused her son to have an anxiety attack which she says he "will obsess over for a week".

She said: "I tried to hide it from my children but they had already seen it so I had to try to explain it.

"My son is diagnosed autistic and we are going through an ASD assessment for my daughter. They can both suffer with high levels of anxiety and something like that is a trigger for them."

Eleanor says in retrospect she should have checked the space more clearly, but would "never intentionally" park in a disabled bay.

Speaking of the note, Eleanor said: "This sort of thing solves nothing.

"It just spreads more of the same negativity that makes people act carelessly towards each other in the first place and that's the saddest thing about it.

"I feel sad that someone would make such a blind and careless assumption of the worst in people."