We all know that trolling and cyberbullying are very real issues in the new landscape of the internet, but things might not always be as they seem if this next story is anything to believe.

Featured Image VIA

We’re in Warwick for this one, where an 18 year old girl had such a hard time getting over her ex boyfriend that she decided to try and frame him for harassing her with abusive messages online. Claire Crothers admitted to two course of perverting the course of justice at Warwickshire Crown Court, although tried to deflect blame onto a friend that had helped her set up the fake accounts that she attributed to her ex boyfriend.

Instead, it turned out that she had been sending herself and her family hundreds of abusive messages a day – including claims that she was being watched – that she claimed were coming from her ex boyfriend. She then made seven complaints about his behaviour to the police in the hops of getting revenge on him for dumping her. Like just get over it, yeah?

Image VIA

Anyway, Not really sure how she thought she was going to get away with that as it’s fairly easy to track stuff like that via IP addresses or what have you, but I guess she was really devoed that she got dumped hey?  Naturally the police uncovered she was lying pretty quickly and she was sent down.

Judge Peter Cooke was less than impressed with her behaviour, saying the following:

This is a peculiar case.

This is serious, and I don’t want to put you under any illusions about it.

I mean he’s not wrong, especially in the era of #MeToo and Cancel Culture – this poor kid could have had his life completely ruined Crothers had gone about her plan a little more carefully. Scary to think about really isn’t it?

Fortunately, Cooke did end up punishing Crothers appropriately with an eight month jail sentence. Hopefully that will discourage anyone else from trying the same thing.

For more of the same, check out this guy’s ingenious method for finding and outing an online troll. Always good to know how it can be done.