Internet troll banned from social networking sites for posting fake pictures of gunshot victim with bullet wounds in her head

  • Sean Duffy posted online abuse about tragic gun victim Sophie Taylor, 16
  • He was handed community order and told to do 300 hours of unpaid work

By
Leon Watson

14:26 EST, 16 March 2012

The online bully who targeted dead teenagers and cruelly mocked their deaths has been spared jail and banned from social networking sites today for ‘trolling’ about a tragic schoolgirl.

Sean Duffy, 26, from Reading, Berkshire,
had admitted defacing a tribute site
set up to remember Sophie Taylor, 16, between April 18 and 20 last year.

The teenager was shot accidentally by her boyfriend, 18-year-old trainee gamekeeper Calum Murray, who then turned the gun on himself at a cottage near Tomintoul, Moray in Scotland, that month.

Troll Sean Duffy has been accused of posting obscene abuse about dead Sophie Taylor

Charlotte Porter's father suspects the autistic loner of targeting his dead daughter

Troll Sean Duffy posted obscene abuse about dead Sophie Taylor (left) while the father Charlotte Porter (right) suspects the autistic loner of targeting his dead daughter

At Aberdeen Sheriff Court today,
Duffy was sentenced to a community payback order with supervision for
two years and told to do 300 hours of unpaid work.

He
is also banned from creating any accounts on social networking sites
and is not allowed to post any videos or buy any device with internet
access.

Andrew Richardson,
district procurator fiscal for Aberdeen and Stonehaven, said after the
sentencing: ‘The cruel and callous actions of Sean Duffy added to what
was already a very distressing and traumatic time for people trying to
come to terms with the loss of a loved one.

Community order: Sean Duffy has been spared jail for his malicious online campaign

Community order: Sean Duffy has been spared jail for his malicious online campaign

‘Online
behaviour such as this is deplorable and unacceptable. As prosecutors,
we will take a rigorous and firm approach to any such vile offences,
ensuring criminals like Sean Duffy are prosecuted.’

Duffy
appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on February 17 and pleaded guilty to
one charge under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act
2010.

The unemployed
troll had previously been imprisoned for 18 weeks after admitting
sending malicious communications in a similar case.

Sophie’s trainee gamekeeper boyfriend Calum killed the Scottish schoolgirl when the gun he was cleaning apparently went off. He then turned the gun on himself.

Duffy, an autistic alcoholic, was accused of posting fake photos of Sophie with bullet holes in her head.

Duffy earlier admitted he was hooked on ‘trolling’ – where internet users deliberately leave abusive and bullying comments on networking sites to provoke others.

A court heard he trawled the internet looking for tribute sites, before hijacking them with obscene messages.

Grieving father Trevor Porter, from Maidstone, Kent, said Duffy may have targeted tributes for his daughter Charlotte, who died of DVT.

The 17-year-old cheerleader died last year from a huge blood clot after suffering deep vein thrombosis.

A hateful Facebook tribute page was then set up under the cruel name ‘Charlotee Pikey’ showing a mocked-up photo of her with crosses over her eyes, acne on her face and a caption saying ‘DVT Kills Pikeys Dead’.

The troll who set the page up also defaced a picture of her grave with the caption ‘My swanky new home – rent free, Ha Ha Ha’.

Mr Porter, 64, said last year that the cowardly attacks had devastated the family and caused them more pain as they mourned the A Level student.

He said the similarities between the attacks and Duffy’s obscene online abuse had led him to suspect the jailed troll for being responsible for the hurtful images.

He told said Duffy should be forced to see the pain he had caused: ‘He should be made to visit the graves of those kids and see the grief he caused. We are serving a life sentence and shouldn’t have to endure this too.’

TWISTED SEAN DUFFY’S TARGETS

Sean Duffy caused ‘untold distress’ by mocking 15-year-old schoolgirl Natasha MacBryde who committed suicide,  leaving obscene messages and videos on a condolence page set up by her family.

He branded the public schoolgirl a ‘spoiled little ****’ and attached to her tribute site another Facebook page entitled Tasha MacTank Engine featuring a video in which her face was put on a train with the theme to Thomas the Tank Engine playing in the background. He mocked up disgusting images like the one pictured.

Duffy created a Facebook page attacking 14-year-old Lauren Drew, who died in January following an epileptic fit at her home in Gloucester.

Fuelled by alcohol, he cruelly targeted her grieving mother, impersonating her dead daughter on the website, saying: ‘Help me Mummy, it’s hot in Hell’ and captioned images of the girl with ‘Lauren’s rotting body’. On Mother’s Day he taunted her mother Carole, pretending to be her daughter, writing ‘I can’t get out of my coffin, I have scratched my fingers to the bone’.

Duffy also targeted a site for 16-year-old Hayley Bates, of Biddulph, Staffordshire, who died in a car crash on the M6 last September. He called it ‘Hayley Smash Nissan’ and doctored a photo of her with crosses over her eyes, with a picture of the victim captioned ‘used car for sale’ and ‘one useless owner’.

He created a page called ‘Jordan Cooper rest in pieces’ for a 14-year-old who was stabbed to death in Newcastle upon Tyne, in February 2011.

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