Troll Peter Nunn guilty of MP Stella Creasy rape tweets

A man has been found guilty of bombarding a Labour MP with abusive messages on Twitter after she supported a feminist campaign.

Peter Nunn, 33, retweeted messages threatening to sexually assault Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy.

The court heard he sent the posts after the Bank of England said Jane Austen would feature on the new £10 note.

Nunn, from Bristol, had denied the charges, claiming he was "satirising" the Twitter backlash to the campaign.

District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe found him guilty of sending indecent, obscene or menacing messages at a hearing at the City of London Magistrates' Court.

The judge said: "I'm in absolutely no doubt that those tweets, on an objective basis, are menacing."

She also warned him she was not ruling out any options, adding "as you are aware, prison is extremely likely".

One message posted described the "best way to rape a witch", the court heard.

He also wrote: "If you can't threaten to rape a celebrity, what is the point in having them?"

When asked why he posted the messages, Nunn replied: "It is just a joke. It came into my mind at the time and I thought it was really, really funny."

Nunn admitted using a number of Twitter accounts to retweet and post messages about Ms Creasy and feminist Caroline Criado-Perez, who both backed the campaign to keep a woman other than the Queen on a British bank note.

Nunn told the court he did not mean for a message he retweeted and which threatened to rape Ms Creasy to read as a threat, but was instead a show of support for the MP.

He also admitted posting a message to Ms Perez telling her to treat threats to rape her as "a compliment".

District Judge Roscoe said Nunn was not a credible witness and accused him of being "evasive" and "delusional" in court.

Nunn is due to be sentenced on 29 September and prosecutors said they would be applying for an restraining order preventing Nunn from contacting Ms Creasy.