March 25, 2013 9:00am by David Farrar

A good troll story

Dave Trott at The Gate blogs:

My favourite news story last week was about Curtis Woodhouse.

He’s a light welterweight from Hull and he lost his title in a boxing match.

Immediately one particular anonymous person started insulting him on Twitter.

Someone called Jimmybob88.

“Retire immediately, can’t even defend a pathetic little title, you are a complete disgrace.”

At first Woodhouse tried to treat it like a joke.

But Jimmybob88’s insults got worse.

“Haha u lost u silly mug, fight a 10 year old next time if u want to actually win u waste of spunk.”

And this went on for months and months. So did Woodhouse do?

He turned the anonymity around.

He turned it from something to hide behind into a game.

He offered a Twitter bounty.

£1,000 to anyone who would give him Jimmybob88’s name and address.

Even that didn’t frighten Jimmybob88.

He knew he was anonymous and could do what he wanted.

So he kept on.

“What u going to do, knock me out like your last opponent? Ooops.”

But …

But someone did give him Jimmybob88’s address.

It was Mount View Road, Sheffield.

And his real name was James O’Brien.

And Sheffield was just 50 miles away from Hull, where Curtis Woodhouse lived.

So he got in his car and began driving over there. …

But then Woodhouse arrived at his street and tweeted a picture of it.

He tweeted that he was looking for the house number.

Suddenly Jimmybob88’s tweets became pleading.

“I am sorry. It’s getting a bit out of hand. I am in the wrong, I accept that.”

And then Woodhouse knocked on his door.

And finally, at that point, Jimmybob88 stopped tweeting.

In fact he practically stopped breathing.

He cowered inside his house and wouldn’t answer the door.

He even called a friend and begged and pleaded with him to find a way to make Woodhouse go away.

And when Woodhouse could see how pathetic the kind of person he’d been letting get to him was he got in his car and drove back home.

Leaving Jimmybob88 hiding behind the sofa.