Brenda (sweepyface) on FB

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2781377/BREAKING-NEWS-Internet-troll-targeted-McCanns-dead-hotel-room-days-fleeing-home.html

BREAKING NEWS: Internet troll who targeted McCanns found dead in hotel room days after fleeing her home
Brenda Leyland, 63, was found dead in Leicestershire hotel room
She was one of the trolls accused of targeting internet abuse at McCanns
Comes just days after it was reported she had fled her home    

ByStephanie Linning for MailOnline

Published: 17:16 GMT, 5 October 2014 | Updated: 17:16 GMT, 5 October 2014



The woman who was this week unveiled as one of the trolls accused of targeting internet abuse at Madeleine Mccann's parents has been found dead in a Leicestershire hotel.

Brenda Leyland, 63, was identified as one of the people posting online hate messages aimed at the McCanns, whose daughter disappeared during a family holiday to Portugal in 2007.

Leicestershire Police were called to a hotel in Smith Way, Grove Park in Enderby, Leicester today. A spokeswoman said the death was not being treated as suspicious.


Brenda Leyland, 63, was identified as one of the people posting online hate messages aimed at the McCanns

Mrs Leyland was tracked down to her house in Burton Overy, Leicestershire, pictured above

The incident comes just days after it was reported that Mrs Leyland had fled her Leicestershire home.

Using the Twitter handle @sweepyface, the middle-class woman posted dozens of messages attacking the family.

Mrs Leyland was tracked down to her house in Burton Overy, Leicestershire by Sky News reporter Martin Brunt and confronted about her online activities.

When asked why she was using her Twitter account to attack the McCanns, who live with their younger children, nine-year-old twins, in Rothley, Leicestershire, Mrs Leyland replied: 'I'm entitled to do that.'


And when Mr Brunt told her that she had been reported to police, and that Scotland Yard was considering a dossier of Twitter accounts said to show a 'campaign of abuse' against the McCanns, she paused as she got into a 4x4 and replied: 'That's fair enough.'

The footage of the encounter was aired on Sky earlier this week.

A Leicestershire Police spokeswoman said: 'Police were called at 1.42pm on Saturday 4 October to reports of a body of a woman in a hotel room in Smith Way, Grove Park.

'Officers have attended the scene and a file is being prepared for the coroner.

'Identification of the deceased is a matter of the coroner

'The death is not being treateed as suspicious.'



Scotland Yard is currently investigating the posting online of hundreds of hate messages aimed at the McCanns, whose daughter disappeared during a family holiday to Portugal in 2007.

Detectives have decided to act after being given a dossier from McCann family supporters which catalogues the abusive remarks – including death threats – aimed at the couple on Twitter, Facebook and online forums.

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Oh dear lord!

I am lost for words.

So disrespectful. Still branded as an internet troll, even in death.

OMG! I was praying this wasn't true.
Rip Brenda xx

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I'm certainly not convinced that this is genuine. All we have is an ambiguously worded message from Brenda's son which may be a hoax.

Time will tell.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2781377/BREAKING-NEWS-Internet-troll-targeted-McCanns-dead-hotel-room-days-fleeing-home.HTML

Nope it isn't

I really hoped it wasn't true.

I am so sorry for this lady and her family.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I really hoped it wasn't true.

I am so sorry for this lady and her family.

Sympathy isn't much use now really.
  She did nothing, she was just trying to stop media propoganda and look what happened when the "big boys" came to town?  It's a shame not many more people supported her when they could have, but hey ho, being nice doesn't sell newspapers does it?

I think, and hope, that this terrible event will have very far reaching consequences. I do not think that the so-called-antis are going to go away quietly now.

fred wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I really hoped it wasn't true.

I am so sorry for this lady and her family.

Sympathy isn't much use now really.
  She did nothing, she was just trying to stop media propoganda and look what happened when the "big boys" came to town?  It's a shame not many more people supported her when they could have, but hey ho, being nice doesn't sell newspapers does it?

Being hounded to death will sell papers though.

interested wrote:

fred wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I really hoped it wasn't true.

I am so sorry for this lady and her family.

Sympathy isn't much use now really.
  She did nothing, she was just trying to stop media propoganda and look what happened when the "big boys" came to town?  It's a shame not many more people supported her when they could have, but hey ho, being nice doesn't sell newspapers does it?

Being hounded to death will sell papers though.

Course it will, best thing that could hapen as far as media sales could be the sad fuckers

What a terrible tragedy, poor woman. One way and another the Mccanns have brought devastation to so many people, I truly don´t know how they can live with themselves. Just what is it that has virtually the whole world bowing and scraping to them?

Am I the only one who finds it odd that Sky News has not mentioned Brenda's death - no "breaking news"?  No, I bet I'm not.  Nothing from Martin Brunt - who is likely in South Africa for the Dewani trial tomorrow.

Yet the mAil is still being vile.....using troll and being absolutely disgusting to the end


Did we expect anything else.


Brunt....you and the rest off them have blood on your hands .




Everyone should NOT buy a paper ever again.

I will be astonished if Martin Brunt isn't unemployed when he returns - or even sooner than that. It will be a travesty if he keeps his job.

winjoy wrote:I will be astonished if Martin Brunt isn't unemployed when he returns - or even sooner than that.  It will be a travesty if he keeps his job.

We will probably hear that he was doing his job as a journalist blah, blah, blah, and Sky News will defend him all the way.

I have just been physically sick.
I followed sweepy on twitter and she followed me back.
She could be a bit rough but she had a good heart.
I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say.
TBH I am still feeling sick to the stomach.
RIP Brenda.

princess_leia wrote:

winjoy wrote:I will be astonished if Martin Brunt isn't unemployed when he returns - or even sooner than that.  It will be a travesty if he keeps his job.

We will probably hear that he was doing his job as a journalist blah, blah, blah, and Sky News will defend him all the way.

Or even get promoted. They just don't care about anyone who doesn't follow the party line.

princess_leia wrote:

winjoy wrote:I will be astonished if Martin Brunt isn't unemployed when he returns - or even sooner than that.  It will be a travesty if he keeps his job.

We will probably hear that he was doing his job as a journalist blah, blah, blah, and Sky News will defend him all the way.

I understand where you are coming from princess_leia, but I don't think the Brunt will be able to get away with this - I really don't. Remember the vitriol which was extended to the Australian journalists when they caused a nurse to commit suicide...

princess_leia wrote:

winjoy wrote:I will be astonished if Martin Brunt isn't unemployed when he returns - or even sooner than that.  It will be a travesty if he keeps his job.

We will probably hear that he was doing his job as a journalist blah, blah, blah, and Sky News will defend him all the way.

He got 'top billing' on Thursday yet nothing today on this tragic news.

Never forget, it was Gerry McCann who said:  "we need to make examples of people who are causing damage" - that would be people who are causing US damage wouldn't it Gerry.

RIP Sweepyface.
Love and sympathy to family and friends. xxx

-----------------------------------------------

I couldn't post for a while - had to go downstairs for a hug.
My OH is a kind, gentle man - slow to anger.
When I left him to return to the PC he said, very quietly:

"Give them hell."

That would brand him as a troll in some people's eyes.
I know different. xxx

Been out today and returned to this terrible news, I am shocked.

My condolences to her friends and family and may Brenda rest in peace xx

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2781377/BREAKING-NEWS-Internet-troll-targeted-McCanns-dead-hotel-room-days-fleeing-home.html

please post this anywhere  you can  this is from STM   the forum who  are involved with   this blaming the victim

Re: Police investigate McCann trolls

Postby tigerloaf » Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:05 pm

   Jayelles wrote:Absolutely tragic news:-

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -home.html

   (And the hounders are whipping themselves up into a frenzy, blaming everyone other than themselves :s_sad )



It is a very sad that Brenda Leyland has apparently chosen not to continue her life. She has, it would appear according to the Daily Mail, chosen to commit suicide instead of facing up to the things she has done under the pseudonym of “Sweepyface”.

This woman, in her sixties, was so devastated at being found out as the person behind the disgusting and abusive tweets posted under that pseudonym that she felt she had to take this drastic step.

She actually made two clear choices. The first was to deliberately inflict a sustained hate campaign on two innocent people. She followed the other haters and spread the same lies and abuse as them with no compunction at all. Her Facebook posts show that her opinions about the McCanns were, at least in part, based on the lies spread by the haters and not upon actual truth.

She claimed that she was entitled to do this when confronted. The truth was, I suspect, deep down she recognised she was not entitled to do it at all.

Having been confronted over her actions, actions which are not in dispute at all, she made her second decision. She chose not to face up to the consequences of her actions having been exposed.

No-one forced her to choose to post abuse and no-one forced her to take her final action. I am very sorry for her family who have to face the consequences of her actions.

Well I hope they are ALL ashamed of themselves, every single one of the pro brigade who published her details and discussed her at length, I could not live with myself knowing I had caused someone to take their life.

This is way beyond anything that's ever happened in this case, it's just so tragic to think someone has taken their own life over this.

Who are these people, seriously how can these people live with themselves.