Former Manchester United and England international footballer Phil Neville and his wife Julie have been relentlessly harassed on social network website Twitter by vile and despicable trolls who are disgracefully abusing their young disabled daughter.
Neville who now works for the BBC as a pundit has also received numerous death threats, whilst his wife Julie has received a number of horrid threats by online trolls saying they are going rape her . Mrs Neville who is clearly shaken and upset by the disgusting threats and comments spoke to the BBC about their ordeal, Mrs Neville told a BBC reporter that one Twiiter user wrote about t-shirts being issued branding a slogan stating “Phil Neville’s daughter is a spastic”.
Mrs Neville also said that the “ongoing” abuse directed at herself and her family, has also included despicable and totally unacceptable comments about their young daughter, who suffers with cerebral palsy.
Mrs Neville went onto say: “I think the worst things are, Phil has received death threats through Twitter and I’ve had people threaten to rape me. “We had one incident where two guys put on Twitter that you can buy T-shirts and the actual writing on the T-shirts was: ‘Phil Neville’s daughter is a spastic, she’s a Cyclops and she has eight toes’.”People feel that they have no social responsibility on Twitter.
Mrs Neville added: “If people posted these things through our letterbox they would be done for stalking.”
This latest news comes after Greater Manchester police have reported a significant increase in online abuse, Greater Manchester Police say they have seen complaints about online almost double within the last year.
Meanwhile Supt Paul Giannasi, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council hate crime working group, has said that police are contentiously working to stop online abuse, Supt Giannasi said: “There has been a number of successful prosecutions against people posting offensive and abusive messages. “In some cases this has led to the offender being imprisoned.” Supt Giannasi added: “There is a responsibility on police and internet providers to protect people online.”