Game show hopeful insists disfigurement should not be a barrier to opportunity

A SCOT with a facial disfigurement which has led to him receiving vile abuse is a contestant on the new series of The Fortune Hotel.

- BY RICK FULTON

Waiter Atholl Mills, 31, from Eyemouth in the Borders, and his retired cop dad John, 58, will be hoping to outwit rivals and take home the winning briefcase and £250,000.

Atholl was diagnosed with cystic hygroma at birth a condition where the lymph nodes swell. Surgeons removed some cysts but a cut to a left sided nerve resulted in him developing facial palsy a condition that causes a permanent weakness or paralysis.

Atholl, who appeared in December on a Christmas special of Blankety Blank with his big sister Zoe, wants to make sure people with visible disfigurements are given “a seat at the table” and the same opportunities as everyone else.

He said: “Often we are pre judged purely based on how we look. I've lost track of the amount of times when one of my videos do well that my DM requests can be filled with people telling me to end my own life.