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Caroline Criado-Perez deletes Twitter account after new rape threats Caroline Criado-Perez deletes Twitter account after new rape threats
(35 minutes later)
A feminist campaigner subjected to rape and death threats on Twitter has deleted her account on the site, a day after raising concerns about the police investigation into the abuse. A feminist campaigner who was bombarded with rape and death threats on Twitter has deleted her account after receiving more graphic rape threats and expressing concerns that police had lost evidence relating to her case.
Caroline Criado-Perez, from London, was subjected to a string of violent and obscene messages after she was involved in a campaign to have a woman's picture printed on a new banknote. Caroline Criado-Perez, who led the campaign to reinstate a woman on an English banknote, took to Twitter on Thursday to vent frustration at the police's apparent loss of information related to previous death and rape threats, which Scotland Yard has since denied.
On Thursday, she claimed police had lost evidence linked to the case, which was denied by Scotland Yard, and criticised officers for a lack of sensitivity. The journalist deleted her account after receiving further threats on the site in recent days. In a series of tweets, she suggested that police had lost a number of screengrabs she had sent them, adding that resending a large number of them would force her to relive the initial trauma.
She said: "It's just appalling. I got an email saying 'why don't you go through what you've had' from three users with certain handles. It just shows such insensitivity to someone who's been through so much, I can't believe it. I've spent the afternoon crying just from the sheer awfulness of it. "Right, now I'm being expected to trawl through screencaps for threats from specific names. Yes that won't be at all traumatising," she wrote, adding: "What I can't face is having to go through the threats all over again to send them to the police. How can they not fucking have them."
"They wanted me to go through all the tweets again because of their incompetence. Every time I have to go through it it's reliving it all over again." In another tweet, she wrote: "I can just about cope with threats. What I can't cope with after that is the victim-blaming, the patronising, and the police record-keeping."
Criado-Perez received another stream of violent rape threats on Thursday, which she sent to police. Criado-Perez said she had been given conflicting messages by the police, claiming that initially they told her to keep one screengrab per abuser to alert them, before changing that advice.
Scotland Yard said on Friday that officers were trying to contact the campaigner to talk about the case. "Now it seems that unless I have the evidence of all the threats myself, it doesn't count, nothing gets done. No one looked into them," she said, adding: "What also pisses me off is the conflicting info I was given. I was told I only needed to keep one screencap in order to alert the police," she wrote.
A spokesman said: "We are now in a position to confirm that the Metropolitan Police Service has not lost any evidence gathered as part of this investigation. The tweets referred to by the complainant have in fact already been put to a suspect in interview. A Scotland Yard spokesman said on Friday: "We are now in a position to confirm that the Metropolitan Police Service has not lost any evidence gathered as part of this investigation. The tweets referred to by the complainant have in fact already been put to a suspect in interview."
"We are still trying to make contact with the complainant so we can discuss this matter with her and explain our approach, tactics and a summary of the evidence we hold. He added that the force was attempting to contact Criado-Perez to discuss the matter in order to "explain our approach, tactics and a summary of the evidence" they held.
"As there are three people currently on bail we will not be discussing further details of this case, except for directly with the complainant, as we must be careful that we do not do anything that may prejudice potential prosecutions." "As there are three people currently on bail we will not be discussing further details of this case, except for directly with the complainant, as we must be careful that we do not do anything that may prejudice potential prosecutions," the spokesman said.
A 21-year-old man arrested in Manchester, a 25-year-old man questioned by Northumbria police and a 32-year-old man arrested in Bristol are all due to answer police bail in mid-September. Two men have been arrested – a 21-year-old in Manchester and a 32-year-old in Bristol – while a 25-year-old man has been questioned by Northumbria police. All three are all due to answer police bail in mid-September.
Criado-Perez is among several high-profile women to have received threats since last month, including the Walthamstow MP, Stella Creasy, who received abuse after she offered support to the freelance journalist. Criado-Perez came under attack from internet trolls after campaigning for more women to feature on banknotes. She was supported by Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy who was then also threatened, as well as the historian Professor Mary Beard and a number of other high-profile women. Last month Twitter introduced a "report tweet" option for users who are sent abusive messages, which Criado-Perez has described as inadequate to tackle the large number of abusive tweets that she and others have received.
Classicist and television historian Professor Mary Beard, Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and the Europe editor of Time magazine, Catherine Mayer, were among those targeted.
Last month Twitter introduced a "report tweet" option for users who are sent abusive messages.