Candice Warner posted a photo of her kids and it became a dumping ground for hateful comments.

“The three little monkeys,” Candice Warner captioned an Instagram photo of her gorgeous daughters, Indi and Ivy, with their little mate, Austin.

Which of course, was an invitation for social media trolls to tear her family apart. Their crime? Being the offspring of Australian cricket former vice captain David Warner.

Australia is angry with David for his role in Australian cricket’s ball-tampering scandal during the recent third Test match against South Africa. Apparently, the plan to get batsman Cameron Bancroft to use tape to scratch the ball was Warner’s idea – or so it’s been reported. The Sydney Morning Herald said, “Those in the hierarchy at CA [Cricket Australia] have been made aware of suggestions that the vice-captain was the chief conspirator.”

It’s important to note that the same article reported that the allegation against Warner has been denied by his circle. But as we all know far too well, facts or the truth never stands in the way of a good social media troll.

Hence the abuse of David on Candice’s innocent, joyous, and hilarious photo of her babes.

The 3 little monkeys. Indi, Austin & Ivy. @_rebecca_marsh @davidwarner31

A post shared by Mrs Candice Warner (@candywarner1) on Mar 25, 2018 at 8:44am PDT

The trolls embraced the open platform, attacking David, the cricket team, and Candice by association.

User s_i8336 wrote, “no forgiveness for cheating in sport, not ever, dishing out forgiveness for cheats, gives those cheats a license to cheat. Zero tolerance policy is only way to keep all sports clean.”

User monsterfkr claimed, “your husband is a cheater….shame on him.”

When supporters said that the negative comments shouldn’t be directed towards David’s wife, and taken to another platform, user liz_howes commented, “She’s on social media…she’s paid for the good and the bad.”

The same user also asked, “where do you want me to direct them??? To a brother ? Mother??? She is posting pics of her husband.. a cricketer who represents Australia. Who we pay tax to support. You can’t build a platform off fame (as a cricketer’s wife) then expect the public to fold and be silent. It’s not about the children. They will know their cheating father.”

Then user timoshalaly gave some unsolicited career advice, “Back to Woolworths, David.”

The abuse continued, despite numerous calls from other users to practice tolerance and consider the innocence of the children – and the post.

User jensnow69 observed, “How sad that this post of three beautiful children has turned into all these hateful comments. @candywarner1 beautiful photo.”

User behappy6598 put it perfectly: “People have completely lost their sense of judgement just have got a platform and speaking nonsense.”

Let’s remember that Candice Warner is a proud mum, and her Instagram is packed with photos of her beautiful family. It is a very PG-rated account. It’s not about showing the world how cool and popular she is and about her designer clothes. It’s about her family.

A family who, simply by their relationship with Warner, have become collateral damage in an international cricketing saga. How ridiculous.

My World. ❤️ @davidwarner31 #familyfirst

A post shared by Mrs Candice Warner (@candywarner1) on Mar 11, 2018 at 1:29am PST

Candice did not respond, nor close comments on the post. And it seems she didn’t even delete the most vicious ones. This is to her absolute credit: maintaining her dignity by ignoring the abuse and not permitting it to deter her original happy intention of the post.

Doing so was the ultimate way of her triumphing, allowing the hateful comments to remain, and leaving it open for the haters to shame themselves with their exceedingly low blows on a photograph of babies.

The Mamamia Out Loud team discuss Candice Warner’s past, and the sad fact it’s still being used against her.