Curtis Woodhouse faces down Twitter troll

By ARJ SINGH
Published on 15/03/2013 00:00

An “EMBARRASSED” Twitter troll apologised on television yesterday to a boxer whom he enraged so much that he put a “bounty” on his tormentor’s head and drove more than 60 miles to his street.

Curtis Woodhouse had been receiving abusive tweets from James O’Brien for up to eight months before he snapped when he was branded a “disgrace” after losing his English light-welterweight title on points last week.

The former Birmingham City footballer offered £1,000 to any of his followers who could give him the troll’s address, and received it within minutes. He drove more than 60 miles from Hull to Sheffield, where he tweeted a photo of O’Brien’s street and challenged his tormentor to face him. At that point, O’Brien apologised. Yesterday Woodhouse said he finally decided to act after seeing how worried his wife was about the abuse.

He said: “If you are in the public eye, I don’t think it’s right that you should be abused, your family should be abused, your children should be abused, I don’t think anyone has got the right to do that.”

“We don’t know who this guy [O’Brien] is and some of his threats, I don’t know if he’s being serious or not. I thought enough is enough, I am going to put a stop to this right now.”

O’Brien, who sat next to him on the show, said he realised he had “let everyone down”.