Tom Daley Fights Back At Olympic Twitter Abuse

Posted by Steve on Tue 31 Jul 2012 at 11:51

#TeamGB Olympic star, Tom Daley has named and shamed an internet troll who accused the diver of letting down his late father.

Twitter user @Rileyy_69 fired a string of abuse at the 18-year-old Olympian following Monday's men's synchronised 10m platform diving event at the Olympic village.

Tom, and his diving partner Pete Waterfield were at one point in the lead but at the end of the event found themselves in fourth place, missing out on a medal.

While most of the country was behind Tom and Pete, the 17-year-old Twitter user from Weymouth accused Tom of letting down his country, tweeting "you should be ashamed of yourself you let out country down just f**k off."

Pushing his luck, the user then tweeted "you let your dad down i hope you know that," a low-blow as Tom's dad Rob died in May 2011 from brain cancer.

Tom responded to the abuse on Twitter saying "After giving it my all...you get idiot's sending me this..." before re-posting the original comment.

After a further torrent of abuse including comments like "sit your ass back down and don't get on a diving board again" and "hope your crying now you should be why can't you even produce for your country your just a diver anyway a over hyped prick," the user finally attempted an apology.

Directing his apology at Tom, he tweeted "@TomDaley1994 I'm sorry mate i just wanted you to win cause its the olympics I'm just annoyed we didn't win I'm sorry tom accept my apology. please i don't want to be hated I'm just sorry you didn't win i was rooting for you pal to do britain all proud just so upset."

Dorset police later too to the social media platform with a message from Tom's fans, "Regarding tweets to @TomDaley1994 - We are aware of the issue and we are actively looking into it."

Later that day the police confirmed that they acted after being contacted by a member of the public and had arrested a 17-year-old boy at a guest house in the Weymouth on suspicion of malicious communications. It's not been confirmed whether the arrest was specifically over the tweets to Daley or his following aggressive tweets aimed at other users.