How mother’s innocent X Factor post sparked 7-year trolling ordeal
WHEN Nicola Brookes posted an innocent comment defending an X Factor contestant from cyber bullies online, she thought little of it.
But the remark kick- started a seven-year ordeal in which she was relentlessly targeted by internet trolls and left in fear of her life.
At the height of the abuse, Mrs Brookes, 51, who suffers from Crohn’s disease and cannot work, was bombarded with up to 150 hate messages a day by Nicky Wright, 39.
The internet stalker, a stranger she had never met, shared sinister photographs of her online – including one chilling doctored image of her with a gun pointed at her head.
Using the pseudonym Prickly Finger, Wright also mocked her medical problems, made sexually suggestive comments and posted her home address online. Mrs Brookes, a mother of one, became so afraid she resorted to sleeping with a knife near her bed. Earlier this month, Wright – branded a ‘cowardly predator’ by District Judge Amanda Kelly – was jailed for 22 weeks after being convicted of stalking and was ordered to stay away from Mrs Brookes for good.
Brighton Magistrates’ Court was told that Wright had 28 Twitter accounts and 18 Facebook profiles which he used to target Mrs Brookes.
He also attacked her via video channels and blogs, doctored comments she made, created videos about her and posted hate mail to her home address.
Between June 2016 and September 2017, he stalked her on an almost daily basis.
Mrs Brookes, from Brighton, said: ‘It would take all my courage just to pop out to the shop, and I never went out after dark. I was constantly looking over my shoulder. He could have marched up and punched me, stabbed me, thrown acid in my face – anything.
‘I lost friends because I became such a recluse. I even slept with a knife near my bed. He seemed like he really did want me dead.’
Mrs Brookes’s problems began in 2011 when she left an innocent comment on an X Factor fan page, defending contestant Frankie Cocozza, then 18, who was being targeted by online bullies. She said: ‘I don’t even like the X Factor, but I have a daughter around his age who had been bullied too so I’ve seen the affect it can have on teenage minds. ‘All I said was that there was no need for it, and for him to ignore it as they would soon move on to someone else, which they did – me.’ Several trolls singled her out for abuse, falsely accusing her of being a prostitute and drug dealer. She reported the comments, but the trolls simply set up new profiles as the old ones were closed. In 2012 Mrs Brookes won a landmark battle at the High Court forcing Facebook to reveal the identities of the trolls.
But her campaigning against cyber bullies irked her online abusers, especially Wright. Police eventually tracked him down via his computer’s IP address.
Wright, of Lewisham, southeast London, denied stalking and failed to turn up for his trial but was found guilty in his absence. He handed himself in to police the next day and was jailed for 22 weeks for stalking, with two more weeks for failing to attend court.
‘He seemed like he wanted me dead’