A family has been forced to cancel hospital appointments for their severely disabled son after thieves stole his blue badge.

Zac Bennett has a rare genetic disease similar to cerebral palsy that has left him wheelchair bound and in need of constant care.

To take the 12-year-old to appointments at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Zac has been issued with a disabled badge allowing his family to park close in certain bays.

But on Sunday, September 18 father Lee discovered his specially adapted car had been ransacked overnight and the badge taken while parked on the family’s drive in Marion Crescent, Maidstone, one of a spate of petty thefts to hit the area in recent months.

A furious Mr Bennett told the Kent Messenger until a replacement can be arranged his son, who attends Maidstone’s Five Acre Wood school, is isolated and the family face shelling out for parking tickets for spaces in car parks that will have difficulty accommodating the family’s specially adapted car.

Meanwhile, the 44-year-old expects his son’s badge has probably been sold on for hundreds of pounds.

He said: “The thing that annoys me the most is that the badge is now probably sitting on some dashboard somewhere belonging to a person who is not disabled.”

“What I think about the people who could do this couldn’t be printed in a newspaper.”

Figures released by the Local Government Association show the number of thefts of Blue Badges in England has trebled over the last three years.

A police spokesman, said: “No suspects have been identified. If anyone believes they have information relating to this they are asked to call police on 101 quoting YY/020802/16.”