31/07/2012

Teenager Arrested After Malicious Olympics Tweets

A teenager was arrested yesterday in connection with abusive and threatening tweets sent to diver Tom Daley.

A user under the name @Rileyy_69 sent a string of messages to the 18-year-old diver, who narrowly missed out an Olympics medal in the 10m sychronised men's final yesterday.

The internet abuser even taunted Mr Daley that he had "let his dad down".

Tom Daley's father, who was hugely instrumental in developing his diving career, died last year of brain cancer.

The messages continued: "You should be ashamed of yourself you let your country down just f*** off.

"Sit back down Tommy and don't get on a diving board again my little brother could do better absolute waste of space.

"Hope your (sic) crying now you should be why can't you even produce for your country, your just a diver anyway a over hyped p****."

Some of the tweets have since been deleted but are accompanied by a long trail of abuse from the Twitter user, continuing after he was arrested.

Many of them are responses to other users of the site, who tweeted him or were involved in the #GetRileyy_69Banned hashtag, which flared up immediately.

He tried to back down immediately after the attack, saying "I'm sorry mate I just wanted you to win cause it’s the Olympics I'm just annoyed we didn't win I'm sorry tom accept my apology".

Dorset Police arrested a 17-year-old at a Weymouth guest house last night on suspicion of malicious communications, and said he was "helping police with their inquiries".

(NE)

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