The women-hating Twitter trolls unmasked: From a respected military man to a former public schoolboy, men who anonymously spew out vile abuse online Caroline Criado-Perez received abuse over Jane Austen campaign MP Stella Creasy was also singled out after expressing support for her Mary Beard and MP Claire Perry have also received abuse Some of the trolls have now been unmasked following investigation By Paul Bracchi Around 1pm on Sunday, Caroline Criado-Perez received a tweet from someone in the Newcastle area. She knew what to expect even before she read it. By then, Miss Perez, 29, a feminist campaigner, had been all but overwhelmed by a torrent of threatening, abusive and misogynistic messages on Twitter after successfully lobbying the Bank of England to put the novelist Jane Austen on the new £10 note. Few, though, were as menacing as this one. "I will find you," the anonymous predator warned, using the sinister username Johnny@beware0088. He continued to target Miss Criado-Perez with threats and insults all day, and the intimidation continued late into the night. "Come to geordieland, bitch," he wrote at one point, which strongly suggested that he was from the North-East himself. Named and shamed: John Nimmo (left) has been arrested on suspicion of harassing both Miss Perez and Labour MP Miss Creasy. He has now been released on bail. Oliver Rawlings (right), 20, a former public schoolboy, sent sexist abuse to leading academic Mary Beard Targeted: MP Stella Creasy (left) and Caroline Criado-Perez (right) both received abuse on Twitter During the sustained onslaught, much of it too vile to repeat, he fantasised about raping Miss Criado-Perez and voiced his enthusiasm when a fellow "troll" - the online slang for people who specialise in this kind of abuse - told her "you need to get f***** until you die," prompting Johnny@beware0088, to inquire: "Could I help with that." Miss Criado-Perez, who lives in London, was not his only victim. MP Stella Creasy, 36, was also singled out on Twitter by the same individual after she expressed support for Miss Criado-Perez. "The things I could do to you," he told Miss Creasy, before calling her a "dumb, blonde bitch." The people who write this filth did not want anyone to know who they are for obvious reasons, which is why they use fictitious Twitter "handles," as usernames are known in this world. Our own inquiries have established that the Johnny@beware Twitter account belongs to John Nimmo, 25. An avid Newcastle United fan, he lives with his fiancee in a flat in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. She is a care worker, he is unemployed and rarely goes out. On Tuesday, Nimmo was arrested by officers from Northumbria Police, working on behalf of Scotland Yard, on suspicion of harassing both Miss Perez and Labour MP Miss Creasy. Tweets: Plumber Neil Law (left), of Aberdeen, sent abuse to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez on Twitter. Wesley Meredith (right) sent a tweet about feminist Laura Bates which said: 'I'd say she needs a good rogering if you ask me' "The solicitor has told us not to say anything," said his father Ray, 56, who lives near his son. He is divorced from Nimmo's mother Sharon, who works in a local supermarket. John Nimmo is the second person to be arrested over the latest Twitter controversy, which resulted in more than 60,000 people signing a petition to demand the social network improve its regulation of abusive users. Some of those involved in the recent tirade against Miss Criado-Perez , two female MPs, and other high-profile women, are exposed today following our investigation into this dark sub-culture. Messages: Jack Riley, 21, is a car mechanic who was arrested for allegedly sending offensive messages to Caroline Criado-Perez The culprits come from all walks of life. One worked in a dodgy Soho shop, another is a married Army instructor. Not surprisingly, given the explicit sexual nature of the vitriol, all are male. The psychology behind this disturbing - and, it seems, escalating - phenomenon can be found in the term "troll" itself, which is thought to derive from a fishing technique of slowly dragging a baited hook from a moving boat. "Trolls" post inflammatory remarks on the internet (the metaphorical "bait") to illicit a response from those they have abused (the metaphorical "fish"). They do it for the "LULZ," or laughs, a variation of LOL (Laugh Out Loud). In other words, their sociopathic behaviour is as much about manipulation and control as causing offence and distress. Why else would Claire Perry, 49, the Conservative MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, who has been advising the Prime Minister on measures to tackle the spread of extreme pornography on the internet, have been sent the following tweet last weekend? "Dear Claire," it began, "Can you please direct me to some decent porn sites. I especially like MILFS [a repellant internet acronym meaning "Mothers I'd like to f***"] and you are a definite MILF." Miss Perry would be only too aware of what the acronym meant given her campaigning role in this field. And if she didn't, a simple Google search would have told her. The sender is identified only as Sylvester Puddy Tat@Groovy23. Who is he really? Answer: Londoner Carl Attard. Attard, believed to be in his mid-30s and in a relationship, was not in when we called at his flat near Oxford Street this week. But a relative said: "He worked in a video shop, one of those naughty ones on Soho. I haven't spoken to him for a long time, but he worked there for at least ten years. As far as I know, he isn't married and he doesn't have children. Embarrassment: Oliver Rawlings faced public embarrassment this week after sending sexist abuse to Mary Beard When Attard - aka Sylvester Puddy Tat - was challenged by a female Twitter user about his message to Miss Perry, he replied: "It was a joke for Christ's sake. Get yourself a sense of humour. Oh, you're a feminist," before adding later: "Did I threaten or call her names. I despise trolls as much as anyone. Do not judge. Surely MILF is a compliment. Doesn't this tell us as much about Carl Attard as his original tweet? On Monday, less than 24 hours after Miss Criado-Perez was targeted by Johnny@beware0088, she received another message: "Back to the kitchen, you t***." In subsequent tweets from the same "troll," she was called a "slut" and a "prostitute." Did I threaten or call her names. Surely MILF is a compliment Carl Attard He also made a revolting remark about her anatomy. And there was more. Go and tell all your followers to go and wash all their faces with acid including you [Miss Criado-Perez] as well. It wasn't hard to discover who was responsible. For the culprit tweeted using his real name: Neil Law@NeilOfficial. Law, in his 20s, is a plumber from Aberdeen. On Facebook, he is pictured partying with his arms around attractive young women, with one friend dubbing him "Stud Law." Like Carl Attard, he was utterly unrepentant when taken to task by appalled Twitter users. Asked whether he thought his behaviour was "normal and made him proud," Law insisted defiantly: "Yes, yes I do. And yes it does make me proud. It is an offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 punishable by up to six months in prison to send an electronic message that is "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character." Even though more than 3,000 people have been prosecuted over the past two years or so, the statistics cover all forms of electronic communication, including phone calls. In reality, there have been few prosecutions for actual internet trolling. Presumably, this is why Law, a Manchester United supporter, didn't feel compelled to hide behind a pseudonym. Academic: Mary Beard was among the high-profile women targeted by internet trolls But Neil Law, we can report, was in for a nasty surprise. Someone discovered, from Facebook, that he worked for Barratt Developments and reported him to his employers. He may now face the sack. "These are extremely serious allegations against one of our employees who has now been suspended pending a formal investigation," said a company spokesman. Barratt has strict policies against any form of harassment or threatening behaviour and any employee that's found contravening them would be subject to the appropriate disciplinary action. Last Friday, at the height of the Twitter storm, Miss Caroline Criado-Perez went on the offensive herself. "Friendly reminder to sexist men of Twitter . . . rogering of women online is taken as a threat by police," she tweeted. What did she mean? Her tweet, it emerges, was aimed at one man in particular. Wesley Meredith, 30, is an instructor at the Royal School of Military Engineering, the main training establishment for the Royal Engineers. He lives in Brighton with his partner and young daughter. Alongside a photograph of the youngster on Facebook, he has written: "Proud as punch." Yet last week, he sent a message to the Twitter pages of The Everyday Sexism Project, a website that catalogues women's experiences of sexism, whose founder, Laura Bates, had just appeared on Jeremy Vine's lunchtime Radio 2 show. The message read: "I'd say she [Miss Bates] needs a good rogering if you ask me." Meredith also sent the tweet to Vine's radio programme. Hence the "friendly" reminder from Caroline Criado-Perez. Meredith's partner was fully aware of the tweet, but seemed unperturbed when we called at their home on the South coast this week. Answering the door, she said he had been "very careful" about the wording, and had even taken the trouble of checking the precise meaning of "a good rogering" in a dictionary. Back on Tyneside, John Nimmo, the first troll in our story, lives in a flat with his fiancee on the Whiteleas council estate in South Shields. Miss Perry was called a 'MILF' by Londoner Carl Attard on Twitter "His fiancee works and you always see her leaving or coming back on her scooter, regular as clockwork, and she'll say hello," said a neighbour. He is very different. You never see him except maybe when he's putting out stuff in the bins. He seems to spend all his time in the flat. When the police came round the other night they were banging and banging on the door, walking round the garden and shouting up at the windows. Eventually, he came down and they took him away. They had his computer and I saw the officer with his mobile phone in a plastic bag. His girlfriend wasn't in at the time. I had to tell her he had been taken away. She was pretty upset. 'You never see him except maybe when he's putting out stuff in the bins. He seems to spend all his time in the flat A neighbour on John Nimmo Two others also faced public embarrassment this week. One was student Oliver Rawlings, 20, a former public schoolboy, who sent sexist abuse to leading academic Mary Beard on Twitter. The other, Jack Riley, 21, is a car mechanic, who, like John Nimmo, was arrested for allegedly sending offensive messages to Caroline Criado-Perez. The chain of events that led to Nimmo's arrest began with an investigation for the BBC's Newsnight programme by freelance journalist Mike Deri Smith. Smith made contact made contact with Johnny@beware0088 - who had targeted Miss Criado-Perez and Miss Creasy - on Twitter. The pair exchanged messages for several hours. This is a transcript of part of the conversation, which was not broadcast. Deri Smith: "So I guess you don't regret any of it." MP Claire Perry had been advising the Prime Minister on measures to tackle the spread of extreme pornography on the internet @beware: "What do I have to regret. I wasn't really going to find her. DS: "So you just said it to scare her." @beware: "I don't think it scared her as she said it did. All she was doing was feeding the trolls and making it worse for herself. DS: "So she deserved it then?" @beware: "No comment." DS: "Do you think Twitter can really control the "trolls"" at all." @beware: "No way at all." DS: "Would you want to apologise to Perez given the chance." @beware: "If she's passed to the police then there's no point ... let's see what happens am betting nothing will happen or it could take them weeks." Deri Smith later established that the @beware account - and a string of other accounts - was run by John Nimmo. When Newsnight rang Nimmo, who was not identified on the programme, he claimed someone had hacked into his accounts to send the "rape" tweets. Deri Smith passed all this information to the police. Less than 48 hours later, John Nimmo was arrested. The question is, can the authorities ever properly police social networking sites such as Twitter, or is it time Twitter did a better job of policing itself? Additional reporting: TIM STEWART