January 7, 2014

Court appearance for pair accused of sending menacing tweets to journalist

Two people will appear in court this morning charged with sending menacing tweets to journalist Caroline Criado-Perez.

Isabella Sorley, 23, and John Nimmo, 25, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced last month that both had been charged.

However it would not be in the public interest to prosecute over messages allegedly sent to Stella Creasy.

Twitter faced questions about the way it handled a sustained campaign of abuse against the two over the call for a woman's portrait to feature on a banknote.

Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, was said to have been targeted when she came to the defence of freelance journalist Criado-Perez, who allegedly received an ''avalanche'' of abuse after leading a campaign over the notes.

Sorley, of Akinside House, Akinside Hill, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Nimmo, of Moreland Road, South Shields, are both charged with sending by means of a public electronic communications network messages which are menacing in character, contrary to Section 127(1) (A) of the Communications Act 2003.

There was insufficient evidence to charge a third suspect who was also alleged to have sent offensive messages to Criado-Perez.

Prosecution of a suspect who allegedly sent offensive messages to Creasy was dropped as it was not in the public interest, the CPS said.