LET me start with a confession – I know and care very little about the lives of celebrities.

It’s just not something my autistic brain has ever latched onto, which is probably just as well because there are so many celebrities, I’d have a terrible job trying to remember who is married to who or who stole whose cat.

Although, I can tell you in detail who won every series of Robot Wars. The reason I mention the fact I too have additional needs I’ll come onto later.

But the last few days I have found myself paying rather close attention to the stories and social media posts and comments about Katie Price coming to Cornwall.

I’ve done so out of curiosity, because she was accompanied by Lewis Nicholls, an old college friend of mine who has worked exceptionally hard to become a celebrity interviewer and podcaster (honestly, his backstory is inspiring for any kid who aspires to live a dream), and partly because I have been absolutely horrified by the sheer level of abuse I’ve seen thrown the way of Katie, Harvey and Lewis.

Maybe there’s something I’m missing here, but I cannot for the life of me fathom a situation where the level of abuse being directed is ever justified or acceptable.

The abuse I’ve seen ranges from comments aimed at Lewis, for whom interviewing celebrities has been his ambition for the entire time I’ve known him telling him that if he lies with dogs he should expect fleas, to some of the more deranged.

There are people with Facebook accounts dedicated to sharing Katie Price related things with some pretty vile commentary added.

I know enough about Katie Price to know that she is an absolute pro at getting into the news, for good or bad.

Along the way, she’s made herself a not insignificant amount of money, and from memory, has sometimes lost a fair amount of it too. I don’t think she’s ever shied away from the fact in life she’s not exactly got every decision right.

Maybe she’s pretty good at repelling the level of abuse she gets, but that doesn’t make it right. People have the right to an opinion, sure, and there’s little barrier to expressing it but when it crosses the rubicon into abuse, that for me is when it becomes unacceptable.

It’s acceptable to dislike someone, even if, actually, you don’t know them beyond what you see on the old medias, but it is not acceptable to spend every living moment you have being abusive which, the evidence of some of what I’ve seen the last few days is pretty much a full time vocation for some in our society.

I was particularly appalled by the abuse towards Lewis, who, having spoken to him at length about this, has told me two things. The first is that the friendship he enjoys with Katie is genuine. The genesis of her visit to Cornwall was originally for Harvey to enjoy a holiday, and the posts you saw from Lewis and Shane Solomon (who, by the way, is doing a tremendous job putting Cornwall on the wider stage digitally), were inviting suggestions for places for them to go and things to do.

No business or attraction was forced to host them, and the invite was open-ended. I suspect some of those who took part identified the value that could come with Katie and Shane in particular sharing the moments they visited said venues on their sizeable social media outlets.

The second is that the documentary about their love of Cornwall came about during the visit, not before – it was an idea borne by the collective creative minds of those present after enjoying their time down here and filming the various things that they got up to.

For me, a documentary about Cornwall is always welcome in a time where we have to battle for the eyes and ears of the collective world audience. No matter what people think of Katie Price, she does have a not insignificant fanbase, and that’s not exactly an audience likely to watch a documentary about fishermen or restaurants in Cornwall on Channel 5.

If they see places in Cornwall that Katie Price visited, they’re likely to want to see those places when they visit here themselves – that’s not a bad thing, in my mind.

Simply put, people have two choices. They can watch it, or they can watch something else. It shouldn’t be that hard, but no, the internet is outraged, claiming without any possession of knowledge or fact that the whole trip was planned around this documentary.

But there is one part of this whole abuse arc that really bothers me to no end, and that’s where it concerns Harvey.

The one thing I have always admired Katie Price for is the fact she has stuck by her son Harvey, who as is well known has significant additional needs. I suppose given I myself have my challenges – albeit far more mild in comparison and I grew up around people with additional needs, I identify fairly well with how life might be for him.

Harvey is Harvey. You cannot coach him; you cannot make him be anything other than who he is. Indeed, there is no better representation than the moment where in response to a question about how he’d speak to a bully, he responded with a sentence that ended in a word I cannot repeat here.

I suppose the one saving grace for him is that he’s almost certainly unaware of the abuse that is levelled his way on the internet, but that doesn’t make the sort of comments aimed at him any more acceptable.

Let’s put it into context. These people, hiding behind the keyboard and sometimes under pseudonyms are effectively abusing a man with disabilities.

It doesn’t matter that he’s almost certainly sheltered from it, the fact of the matter is, it shouldn’t happen at all and it says a lot about those who go to those lengths that they do so.

It’s absolutely fine to not be a fan of Katie Price, or dislike how she lives her life. Or, be like me and be fairly disinterested to it all.

But in a vast, open space of the internet, so big that they want to build an AI data centre in Torrington that’s almost as tall as the Bodmin Beacon memorial obelisk, there are plenty of things to enjoy for those who aren’t fans. You don’t have to engage with her content if it’s not your thing. No one is stopping you. There is always the advice of Ronan Keating - to say it best when you say nothing at all.

Although, for those for whom sending abuse to strangers or their disabled children on social media, which I suspect they wouldn’t say to their face, is their thing, perhaps what they need most of all is a hobby that isn’t as vicious.

To quote Blanche Hunt from Coronation Street: “Wait until you try bingo. You’ll be hyperventilating”.