Gerry McCann Says Make Example Of Web Trolls

Madeleine McCann's father has called for tougher action against web trolls after Sky News exposed a woman who abused his family online.

Gerry McCann said online abuse had caused "severe distress" to him and his wife Kate and that police should be more willing to prosecute the perpetrators.

He was speaking after Sky's Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt revealed in a special report that Scotland Yard is investigating a dossier of social media abuse targeting the McCanns - whose three-year-old daughter went missing on a family holiday in 2007.

When confronted over her actions, one of the trolls, who used the name "Sweepyface" online, told Sky News she believed she was "entitled" to attack the couple on Twitter.

Mr McCann said he had not read the Sweepyface tweets, but he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Clearly something needs to be done about the abuse on the internet. I think we probably need more people to be charged.

"We do not have any significant presence on social media or online and I've got grave concerns about our children as they grow up and start to access the internet in an unsupervised capacity.

"People are threatening to kidnap our children, people are threatening violence against Kate and myself."

He said police should be more willing to charge internet trolls.

"I'm glad to see the law around this area has been reviewed. We need to make examples of people who are causing damage," he said.

"It causes us severe distress. There is so much vile nonsense written on the internet."

Mr McCann also branded the Sunday Times "disgraceful" after winning a £55,000 libel payout over a story which claimed the couple had deliberately hindered the search for Madeleine, who vanished in Praia da Luz.

He said the story showed there had been no change in the newspaper industry as a result of the Leveson Inquiry.

"This damaged us, it damaged the reputation of the fund and it quite potentially can damage the search for Madeleine," he said.