NO BASIS IN THE ACCUSATIONS IN THIS JAMES MURRAY ARTICLE

McCann troll Brenda ­Leyland driven to suicide by Twitter death threats
DEATH threats were allegedly sent to the woman found dead in a hotel just after she was publicly accused of trolling Kate and Gerry McCann over their missing child Madeleine.
By: James Murray
Published: Sun, October 12, 2014

In tragic irony, the hate messages directed at lonely divorcee Brenda ­Leyland were tweeted by someone who aggressively defended the McCanns on the internet.

The Sunday Express has passed on the five disgraceful messages to Leicestershire Police who are preparing a report for the coroner over the unexplained death of mother-of-two Ms Leyland, 63.

They were sent on Friday, October 3, from someone calling themselves Rainne and addressed directly to Ms Leyland’s Twitter account, @sweepyface.

The following day her body was found at the Marriott Hotel in Leicester where she had fled to after being identified as the sender of tweets expressing her views on the Madeleine mystery.

Today we can disclose some of the appalling comments sent to her. The first states: “Hoping you get beaten so bad you beg for mercy, only to have gasoline thrown on you and set ablaze.”

The next adds: “You have reached the end of your torturing campaign against the McCann family, understand.”

The third message is a direct threat against her life with the sadistic author stating: “Death is waiting and watching for u @sweepyface..Do you feel it????”

The next attack was so disgusting it is unsuitable for publication.

The last message states: “Sweepyface, we’re coming for you. Do you feel us?? The decent kind folk who pray for this family and their sad loss.You go to hell *****.”

Police are trying to establish the details of the sick pro-McCann troll, who may face prosecution, and discover whether Ms Leyland read the messages and if she discussed them with any family or friends prior to her death. A spokesman for Leicestershire Police said: “We are investigating the circumstances around the death. If any offences are disclosed, we will investigate appropriately.”

There is no suggestion that Kate and Gerry McCann or any members of their wider family know Ms Leyland’s troll.

Ms Leyland was confronted about her Twitter comments about the McCanns by Sky News, which revealed that Scotland Yard detectives on the Operation Grange squad were examining a so-called dossier of anti-McCann trolls.

She was not named in the report and crime reporter Martin Brunt did not say she lived at Burton Overy, a village just 15 miles from the McCanns’ home in Rothley, Leicestershire. However, her identity quickly became known.

After the report Gerry McCann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Clearly something needs to be done about the abuse on the internet. I think we probably need more people to be charged. We do not have any significant presence on social media or online and I’ve got grave concerns about our children as they grow up and start to access the internet.

“I’m glad to see the law around this area has been reviewed. We need to make examples of people who are causing damage.”

A friend of Ms Leyland said she “couldn’t live with herself” after being outed and feared going to jail.

The neighbour, who had been due to accompany university-educated churchgoer Ms Leyland to a harvest festival the day after her death, said: “We never dreamed she was trolling the McCanns. That was very wrong.

“Brenda was a proud, very bright, articulate and upstanding lady and the thought of a prosecution and a prison sentence hanging over her would have devastated her. Sadly she couldn’t live with herself.

“I’ll really miss her, yes she was eccentric and opinionated but she was flamboyant and fun too.”

Today we can reveal fresh momentum in the investigation to find out what ­happened to Madeleine, who vanished from a holiday home in Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007.

Scotland Yard detectives are due to fly to Portugal tomorrow for a meeting with Portuguese officers and possibly Ines Sequiera, the new prosecutor for the case, who is reported to be “utterly determined” to crack it.

They want their Portuguese counterparts to interview three of seven suspects for a second time and search their homes.

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell, responding to alleged online death threats against Brenda Leyland, said yesterday: “We will not be commenting. It is a matter for the coroner.”

A source close to Kate and Gerry said: “Abuse online seems to go in either direction but it has nothing to do with Kate and Gerry. They do not encourage or condone anything online. People seem to say anything they want.”

tigerloaf » Sun Oct 12, 2014 11:45 am
Having read this article by James Murray of the Daily Express, I offer him, or anyone else who feels able to defend him, a challenge.

The challenge is simple.

Please explain why you appear to have told a blatant lie in this article. Please defend, with actual evidence, the first sentence of the article which claims that the hate messages you list were sent to Brenda Leyland by "someone who aggressively defended the McCanns on the internet".

As you would be aware, had you actually read the tweets made by this troll there is only one reference to the McCanns or Madeleine anywhere in her timeline. That tweet is this one:

477466224620605441|Fri Jun 13 15:03:13 +0000 2014|out of all these cases,this one has stayed on my heart and mind.I pray they find out where she is http://news.msn.com/world/mccann-search ... ce#tscptmt

Do you consider that is sufficient for you to describe that person as "someone who aggressively defended the McCanns on the Internet"? Is everyone who has ever posted a single message anywhere online to the effect that they hope missing Madeleine may one day be found, to be considered as "someone who has aggressively supported the McCanns on the Internet" in your view?

Are you a man of honour who will willingly explain his comment or will willingly admit the truth if you are wrong? Or are you going to leave this article as it stands with what appears to everyone who actually reads the tweets concerned a lie as its basic premise?

Would you prefer that this lie stand or that the truth be told?

Jayelles » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:33 pm
Yes, the people at the heart of this orchestrated campaign of abuse against the McCanns are currently all over the comments section of this article. Spamming readers' comment sections of newspaper articles about the case with their hateful propaganda about the McCanns and anyone who supporters them is "what they do".

They seem to forget that it wasn't the McCann supporters who posted Sweepyface's personal info online, but themselves. Gaemar01 was the first I believe, followed swiftly by JillHavern's forum.

The media followed after that.

Jayelles » Sun Oct 12, 2014 11:55 am
James Murray's article is a feeble attempt to be sensational. If he had been honest, he would have acknowledged that the personal making those tweets i.e. Raine aka @dirndllass made almost identical tweets to many others over many months.

The tweet which he deemed "unsuitable for publication" contains the exact same abuse which Rainne aka @dirndllass has hurled at many, many others before.

It isn't rocket science to see that this account was used by a very mentally unstable person and NOT an "aggressive McCann defender" as James Murray dishonestly tells his readers.

jayelles » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:01 pm I have absolutely no issue with James Murray writing an article to highlight the problem of trolling. The fact that this person had such an appalling timeline of abuse which only got suspended in the last few days is a prime example of the problem which we have been harping on about for a while. I applaud any effort to highlight the problem.

I do take issue with his claim that this person is one of us. Not only is this person NOT one of us, we have condemned and reported her comments. There is not one shred of evidence to support Murray's claim that she is an "aggressive McCann defender".

He needs to amend that article pronto and apologise to his readers for getting his facts arse about face.

ETA - as *** points out, we should not really be surprised that this non-factual article has come from the Express as historically, they were the worst offenders at publishing misinformation about the case (resulting in massive damages being paid to the family) and James Murray is the Express journalist whom I personally associate most with covering the McCann case.

Jayelles » Sun Oct 12, 2014 1:27 pm
This just goes to show what dishonest people the McCann haters are.

Some weeks ago, there were several truly obscene tweets posted on the #McCann hashtag. Unrepeatable and about Madeleine. Some of you will know the tweets to which I refer. They were blatantly paedophilic.

We reported these, but we did NOT try to insinuate that these were typical examples of what the McCann haters were posting because it was quite evidently a case of sick, but isolated trolling.

I DID condemn the haters for ignoring these tweets though. Not one of them condemned them. Not even RothleyPillow who claims to be all about hating p.a.e.d.o.philes. Rothleypillow was online tweeting at the same time as these tweets were made. Not ONE of these people who claims to care about child abuse commented on what must be one of the kost disgusting conversations I have ever seen on Twitter. They simply ignored them despite the fact that they invariably respond to every new commentator on the #McCann hashtag.

We, on the other hand, rightly condemned and reported this Rainne person (on Twitter and in earlier posts on this thread). Yet the haters are trying to hold this troll up as a typical example of a McCann supporter?

Fortunately, decent, intelligent people can see what they are about.

Anonymous12 Oct 2014 11:47:00
Express supports Brenda Leyland