Merseyside Police has launched an investigation into misuse of the force’s Twitter account after responses to football fans about rape sparked public outrage.
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The incident began when a Twitter user called Brandon tweeted at the forces account: “Hello, I’d like to report an incident of rape that occurred at Goodison Park, Liverpool, On November 1 at 3”. “Sunderland got caught with their trousers down though”.
Unsurprisingly, there was an enormous backlash on Twitter and the tweets were later removed from the page.
Merseyside Police immediately responded, saying: “Afraid not, it’s not a criminal offence to lose week in week out”.
“Merseyside Police takes every report of sexual offences extremely seriously and has dedicated officers within the force’s Unity Team who are specially trained to both thoroughly investigate allegations and make sure that those reporting them are properly supported”.
Stephen Sutton wrote: ‘Is it appropriate for an Official Police Account to be tweeting rape jokes?’
Around 5.30pm Merseyside Police issued a statement about the exchange on Twitter.
One user wrote: “This is exactly what women don’t need from their police force”.
The tweets have been deleted but screen grabs of the conversation has been retweeted and met with fury on Twitter.
Minutes later, the police account responded: “Just confirm there was no actual rape for me?”
‘It’s completely inappropriate. It’s appalling and sends out completely the wrong message.
Merseyside Police offered an apology in a series of posts.
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“We feel that this highlights a gap in training in this area of work and would suggest that any individual posting through official channels on social media is made aware of the consequences of their actions and the pain and shock they can cause victims of a few of the worst crimes”.
