Woman whose Facebook post sparked claims Little Jack hospital photo was staged says account was ‘hacked’ and she’s now getting ‘death threats’
- A Facebook post claiming the Little Jack photo was staged spread rapidly online
- Hundreds of bots shared the message with potentially millions of voters
- The woman behind the post today insisted her account had been hacked
- She said she’s had death threats and received vile online abuse after accepting a Facebook friend request from what appears to have been a fake account
A woman who sparked claims that the photo of Little Jack sleeping on a hospital floor was staged insists her Facebook account was hacked and that she has been the victim of fake news.
The post claiming Jack Willment-Barr’s mother had placed the four-year-old on the floor just to take the picture that yesterday threatened to derail Boris Johnson‘s election campaign spread rapidly across social media over the past 24 hours.
‘I was hacked. I am not a nurse and I certainly don’t know anyone in Leeds,’ said the woman, who says she has since received death threats and been left suicidal.
‘I’ve had to delete everything as I have had death threats to myself and my children.’
The post claiming Jack Willment-Barr’s mother had placed the four-year-old on the floor just to take the picture that yesterday threatened to derail Boris Johnson’s election campaign spread rapidly across social media
Since the post was shared by hundreds of fake online accounts, the woman says she has had death threats and been plagued with abusive phone calls.
The post said: ‘Very interesting. A good friend of mine is a senior nursing sister at Leeds Hospital,’ it began, before claiming the photo was staged and that the child was placed on the floor purely for a photo before going back onto a trolley.
It potentially reached millions of voters and was amplified by Conservative MPs and celebrities and journalists who shared it with their followers.
The woman, who MailOnline has chosen not to name, said: ‘I simply responded to an invite to become friends with someone I didn’t know.
‘I thought it might be an old school friend. I wish I had never done it, I’m now feeling suicidal.
‘This post has now appeared in my name and the world has gone mad. I don’t know anyone in Leeds and I am not a nurse.
‘I am totally innocent in all this but I’ve had death threats and am being trolled on Facebook and Twitter by people I don’t know threatening me. I’m in a terrible state.
‘I work as a secretary not a nurse. I have deleted all my social media accounts and reported this to the Met police cyber crime unit.’
The woman, who lives in West Sussex, says she cannot recall the name of the person who contacted her with the friend request.
When ITV reporter Jo Pike tried to show Boris Johnson the picture of the boy on his phone on Monday, the PM declined to look at it. He eventually took the device and put it in his pocket
She added: ‘As I’ve now deleted the accounts I can’t find that invitation but it was someone using a normal sounding name.
‘This has terrified me. I had no idea someone could hack an account and do something like this.
‘Even my husband, who is a consultant, saw it and assumed it was from me.
‘It’s a nightmare for me now just as I was looking forward to Christmas. I have no idea who could be behind it. I don’t want my name associated with it in any way.’
Despite claims of the staged photo, Leeds General Infirmary last night confirmed that Jack did sleep on the floor due to an ‘extremely busy’ week.
‘Our hospitals are extremely busy at the moment and we are very sorry that Jack’s family had a long wait in our emergency department,’ said Dr Yvette Oade, the chief medical officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS trust.
‘We are extremely sorry that there were only chairs available in the treatment room, and no bed. This falls below our usual high standards, and for this we would like to sincerely apologise to Jack and his family.’