Sunderland mother left 'sick to the stomach' at return of malicious social media hate campaign against severely disabled son

On Mother’s Day, Sunday March 19, Billie-Jo Hargrave began to receive malicious messages from what she believes to be fake Snapchat account set up in the name Adam Williams.

The account included a photograph of her five-year-old son, Dainton Austin, who suffers from microcephaly, a condition which causes bleeds on the brain which have resulted in him being blind, dependent on additional oxygen and unable to sit up without support.

Accompanying the photograph was a derogatory comment about his disability as well as further abusive comments about Dainton.

On the same day, Billi-Jo, who lives in Thorney Close, began to receive messages from a Facebook account set-up in the name Smith See which again included a message with a photograph of Dainton as well as abusive comments about his appearance and disability.

Billie-Jo, 24, said: “These comments are vile, sick and a disgusting thing to do aimed at a helpless five-year-old boy.

"They make me sick to the stomach. Dainton is suffering enough and doesn’t need this on top.

"Dainton is a big part of everyone’s life and my family are fuming about what has happened.

"A few weeks ago Dainton stopped breathing and was unresponsive and he is now on permanent oxygen. Everyday I have Dainton is a blessing. I sometimes think that if I did lose him, would whoever is doing this still keep sending these messages?”

TikTok abuse

The incidents follow-on just two months after two abusive fake accounts were set up on TikTok, again featuring photographs of Dainton along with “malicious” derogatory comments about his disabilities.

Speaking at the time Billie-Jo said: "I was in tears when I saw it and couldn’t understand why anyone would do this. The words used were vile. He can’t help having a disability and I just can’t understand why anyone would target an innocent little boy who has never done anything to anyone.”

Despite reporting the situation on Tik Tok’s ‘problems page’, Billie-Jo said one of the accounts remained live for three weeks before the Echo contacted the social media company.

Tik Tok later confirmed the accounts had been removed and stressed “this kind of behaviour has no place on our platform".

Following the latest malicious accounts and abuse, Billie-Jo said: “I can’t think of any reason why someone would do this. Things have been quiet for a couple of months and then it has started again.

"The first time I was fuming and now I’m just thinking when is this going to end and will they take things any further? I can’t help but think all these accounts are linked together.”

After receiving the abusive messages on Facebook, Billie-Jo contacted the social media company and received a “support message” which confirmed receipt of her message against the company’s “Community Standards”, but said that a decision had been taken “not to take the profile down”.

‘Clear policies against bullying and harassment’

Billie-Jo also replied to the account and said she had reported the abuse to the police and the account was later deactivated.

The Echo contacted Facebook about the account and forwarded the content of one of the messages.

The social media company replied to say they have “clear policies against bullying and harassment and hate speech” and they remove any such content when they become aware of it.

Billie-Jo was unsure of how to report the abuse to Snapchat and so contacted the Echo and asked us to raise the situation with the social media company.

The account has now been deactivated.

However, despite the accounts being removed, Billie-Jo has been left angry they were able to be set-up in the first place and feels there needs to be greater controls and monitoring put in place by the social media giants.

She said: “I’m glad the social media companies have now reacted and removed these accounts, but these social media companies need to do more. There has to be something more in place to initially set these accounts up because it's happening too frequently.

"You should have to provide some form of identification that this is actually you setting these accounts up. These companies are making lots of money and there should be greater monitoring of accounts and some form of automatic blocker or alert when certain types of language are used.”

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Facebook responded by citing there are global laws which prevent them from “proactively looking in people’s direct messages” and that there is an app system in place to report concerns and provide permission for them to access messages and “take action” where necessary.

The social media giant also said it doesn’t think it should be proactively reviewing everyone’s private messages and “our community doesn’t want us to”.

A Snapchat spokesperson said: “Using Snapchat to send abusive messages of any kind is against our rules and we explicitly prohibit bullying and harassment of any kind. If Snapchatters witness or experience this behaviour on the app, we encourage them to report it immediately using our in-app reporting tools so we can investigate and take action."

Northumbria Police have confirmed the incidents are being investigated.

A spokesperson said: “We are aware of suspected hate crimes involving online social media accounts. Enquiries into the reports are ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact Northumbria Police via 101 or the ‘Tell Us Something’ page of our website, quoting crime reference 005239J/23.”