Families who were forced to watch horror movie trailers with their pre-schoolers while they waited to see the Easter holiday hit Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun have spoken out about their experience.

Trailers for psychological thriller Ma and superhero blockbuster Brightburn were shown ahead of the cartoon favourite at Empire Cinema, in the Buttermarket, Ipswich, on Saturday, April 6.

Children were compensated with chocolate buttons and cinema vouchers after they were left scared by the inappropriate trailers.Abigail Bonsall, who had taken her two-year-old daughter to the cinema for the first time said: “It was two trailers; during the first one my husband ran out to tell someone and during the second one I left the screen. It was the 3pm showing. Ten other parents followed.

“Some of the children were crying and my daughter kept saying ‘No monsters!’

“It was a horrible experience. The manager was very apologetic and gave vouchers and chocolate buttons to everyone at the end.”

Commenting on the mistake, a spokesman for Empire said: “We are investigating how an inappropriate trailer was played before a screening of Peppa Pig at our Ipswich cinema for which we apologise.

“As soon as the staff on site were made aware of the situation, the programme was stopped and trailers were taken off screen immediately.

“We do sincerely apologise for this and for any distress caused and will be reviewing our internal procedures to ascertain how this came to being. Peppa Pig did then go on screen as planned.”

Some parents have been relatively understanding about the mix up.

David Brame said: “When we went at 12.15pm we saw no trailer for horror film it was fantastic what we saw my little girl loved it.”

Carole Smith added: “Ooops, the only blot on an otherwise great cinema, well that and the ice cream portion sizes.”

The mistake at the cinema in Ipswich has made the national news with Kathie Louise West posting: “It made headline news on the Radio Five Live last night.”