Like many women of a certain age, Nicola Brookes and Gillian Philip knew very little about the pitfalls of social media.
But both were forced to learn the hard way after their worlds were made a living hell by trolls after spur‑of-the-moment – and eminently sensible – posts on Facebook and Twitter were seized upon by cyber-bullies.
Gillian, 60, was forced to retrain as a HGV driver after she lost her livelihood as an author and was dropped by her publisher within 24 hours of tweeting in support of JK Rowling’s defence of the female gender.
Weeks before the cataclysmic fallout from her tweet, her husband had died.
‘While I should have been supporting my children in the wake of their father’s death, they ended up having to support me – including physically, when I collapsed in my son’s arms one night’, she told MailOnline today.
‘I had just lost my entire income a month after being widowed – my agent also dumped me, ensuring I would not work for a major publisher again’.
Nicola Brookes, 58, suffered more than ten years of hell after she posted an encouraging Facebook comment about an X Factor contestant.
Little did she know that she was to become the innocent victim of vicious internet trolls, one of whom turned out to be a police officer.
Her ordeal began when X Factor contestant, Frankie Cocozza, had received hateful posts on Facebook. Stung by the cruelty, she left a message on his Facebook page, saying simply: ‘Keep your chin up, Frankie, they’ll move on to someone else soon.’
Within minutes bullies turned on her, writing vile abuse including ‘Your [sic] a desperate pedo b***h’ and ‘Ur [sic] a f***ing dog’.
‘Facebook users began deliberately targeting me, writing under my comment that I was a paedophile and hoping that I would die’, she said.
Gillian Philip was a children’s author who was cancelled in 24 hours for backing JK Rowling. She retrained as a HGV driver to pay the bills
A sinister picture posted online mocked up to show a man pointing a gun pointed at Nicola Brookes’ head. It all began when she stood up to trolls tormenting a X-Factor star and she urged him to keep his ‘chin up’
It got worse. From a cloned account, trolls began sending out vile material in Nicola’s name, including paedophilic comments to young girls on Facebook. Hate mail was sent to her home address, which was published online.
Threats to rape and kill her came her way and an online abuser was later jailed.
The lives of these two brave women, and those around them, have been marked by the vicious campaign of online bullying they suffered.
But both women say they are both stronger and wiser because of the harrowing experience, and have no regrets about the posts that caused them so much anguish.
Gillian Philip: Beast Quest author CANCELLED by her publisher just 24 hours after backing JK Rowling
Today Gillian Philip pays the bills as a lorry driver.
But just four years ago she was a successful children’s writer, creating fiction for the popular Rainbow Fairies and Erin Hunters series’ beloved by millions of children around the world.
Her world came crashing down all because of one tweet declaring: ”#ISTANDWITHJKROWLING’ and a ‘torrent of hate’ enveloped her, she told MailOnline today.
Weeks earlier her husband had died and the income she needed to support her bereft family had vanished.
Gillian had decided to back her fellow author Ms Rowling when the Harry Potter creator had made her first foray into the transgender debate by questioning the renaming of women as ‘people who menstruate’.
A Twitter pile-on from pro-trans groups and campaigners ensued, and within 24 hours she was fired by her publisher HarperCollins.
Her agent dropped her too and her own ‘body shut down’ due to fear and anxiety due to the furiousity of the social media pile-on that had ensued.
Gillian Philip, 60, could not have predicted in her worst nightmares what would happen to her in 2020
It was the hashtag ‘IStandWithJKRowling’ that started her trolling nightmare
Speaking to MailOnline today she described how her dream job was lost all from one social media post. It also almost cost her her home.
Many friends she believed would be there for life walked away and cut off contact.
‘My cancellation only took 24 hours. On the morning of June 25, 2020. I woke up to some hostile tweets’, she said.
‘These snowballed until the small hours of the following morning. I was receiving so much abuse, Twitter was sending me messages saying my account was overloaded.
‘I got to sleep at 5am, and was woken at 9am by a call from my agent Julia Churchill. By 2pm, which is 9am New York time where HarperCollins are headquartered, I was fired by Working Partners. My firing was on the instructions of HarperCollins, a major client.
‘The actual mobbing was a blur of hatred – just masses and masses of insults and threats and abuse. I know friends and some other people were trying to tweet their support for me, but that got lost in the absolute torrent of hate. That can’t help but affect you, mentally and emotionally, even though I was numb for a large part of it.
‘I think the body shuts down to a degree. Blocking the abusers didn’t work. I got snippy with some of them – though I wasn’t abusive back – but that didn’t work either.
‘I put on a show of not caring that day, and kept it up for a few days afterwards, but it was definitely all a show. It’s hard to describe the weight and the fury of that much hate. I was running on adrenaline and looking back, I realise I was in shock’.
Incredibly, her now former employer began a campaign of writing letters and emails of apology to some of the abusers who had complained directly to them to get Gillian cancelled.
Some of these individuals had even threatened to rape and kill her in their tweets to her, for which they were never admonished.
She said her agent and publisher never asked for her side of the story and ‘believed every word of anonymous abusers’.
‘I continued to be defiant online – I had nothing to apologise for – but in truth I was coming apart. My husband had died just five weeks earlier.
‘My children were home from university because of Covid, and while I should have been supporting them in the wake of their father’s death, they ended up having to support me – including physically, when I collapsed in my son’s arms one night.
‘I had just lost my entire income a month after being widowed – my agent also dumped me, ensuring I would not work for a major publisher again.
‘I retrained as a lorry driver and now work in the haulage industry’.
After her tweet in support of JK Rowling, Ms Philip claims she received abuse and death threats. She later tweeted ‘Bring it on, homophobes and lesbian-haters’.
Today she is happier and has no regrets about what she did, although her career as a children’s author may be over.
‘With the help of the Free Speech Union and the support of many new friends and followers, I fought back in the courts for four years.
‘But my actual case was never heard – the Employment Tribunal ruled on their side on a technicality of employment law, and my full argument never came to court. I chose to withdraw eventually because my mental and physical health were being so badly affected. Even at that point, both Respondents hounded me to sign a draconian settlement agreement, at the possible cost of my house and savings. Only the generous backing of friends enabled me to face them down and refuse their demands.
‘A couple of months later I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer – I am sure the stress was a contributory factor.
‘I have definitely changed since it all happened – but for the better. I used to wonder, as many of us do, if I would stand up for what I believed in if there was any actual threat to me. Now I know that I would and did. I lost many friends – though in a few cases I did the ditching, because I simply couldn’t believe what they were willing to defend, including the mutilation of children.
‘The friends who stood by me I now know to have been the best friends all along – a cancellation really sorts the wheat from the cowardly chaff. I’ve made many, many new friends too and they are the most stalwart and courageous women and men you can imagine.
‘Because of all this, I genuinely have no regrets about posting in support of JK Rowling and against gender ideology. I know myself better now, and I am a far stronger person. I don’t scare easily, to put it mildly. I’ve seen the worst of humanity and the best, and I’ve become better at telling the difference.
‘My employers may have slithered out of accountability on the grounds of my employment status, but I hope they, and others in the publishing industry, will now think twice about treating other writers as badly as they treated me.
‘I’ve been given a new perspective on what are the most important things in life and politics. I’ve learned that family and true friends matter more than anything. I am truly more certain than ever that I did the right thing’.
Nicola Brookes: Mother trolled for a DECADE after she told a X-Factor star to ‘keep his chin up’ on Facebook
‘These days I don’t let them affect me, and I don’t let them silence me either’, Nicola Brookes, 58, says defiantly.
But she could have had no idea what would have happened to her when she defended an X Factor contestant in 2011.
Frankie Cocozza, one of the contestants, had been thrown off the show for drug use.
Upset by the ‘vitriol and abuse’ he was getting, Nicola, then 46, wrote on Facebook in 2011: ‘Keep your family & friends close Frankie and ride it out. The smug scum that abuse you will soon move on to another scapegoat target.’
But little did she know how she would become their target – and her life would change forever.
Although she wouldn’t change it.
‘I’ve never regretted it. I was right and it needed to be said at the time’, she told MailOnline today.
Nicola Brookes (pictured) has been tormented by trolls for more than a decade
One online abuser set up a fake Facebook profile in her name, with her photo and personal email address, and used it to send explicit messages to hundreds of children, some as young as nine.
Frankie Cocozza, 18, gestures as he performs during the auditions for the X Factor in 2011
Some messages falsely described her as a drug dealer, a prostitute and a paedophile and known child abuser, and others attempted to ‘befriend’ young girls.
On Mother’s Day, trolls published the single mother’s home address in Brighton.
Spurred on by the lack of support, Nicola won a landmark legal case against Facebook in 2012.
She gained a legal order forcing the site to give up the identities of her trolls.
One of her tormentors was even a serving police officer.
One of the gang targeting Nicola since 2015, was eventually convicted of stalking and jailed in 2018 for his part in the abuse.
He had 28 Twitter accounts and 18 Facebook profiles, all of which he used to make Nicola’s life a misery.
He also used doctored comments she made, created videos about her and posted hate mail to her home address. He was sentenced to 22 weeks in jail – but was released after serving just six weeks.
The trouble started for Nicola when she posted a comment on Facebook, defending former X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza. She faced a backlash and a troll shared her picture, claiming she was his drug dealer
Hate mail such as this sinister note was sent to her home address, which was posted online
And every time she posted on social media, Nicola faced cruel and offensive comments from trolls
Over more than a decade she became the number one target for trolls, who tried to completely ruin her life.
Speaking to MailOnline today she said: ‘When you first read the pile-ons, for me there was a physical reaction to it, as if you are winded.
‘I was shocked that a large majority of the public thought and said online. That a vulnerable person being abused, stalked, impersonated, receiving threats, repeatedly sexually harassed and defamed, both on and offline, was OK.
‘And that it was my fault because I was an ‘attention seeker’ speaking out about it in the press and on TV’.
Nicola became a voice for victims – but this only made it worse.
‘Every newspaper interview I did, my known criminal stalkers who I was trying to get prosecuted, would leave multiple posts in the comments section under each article, causing and generating the public to join in the pile-ons.
A Facebook post where Nicola’s face was changed by a troll
‘Seeing the original abuse and posts leaves you helpless, defenceless because there is no ‘real time’ intervention on Facebook and Twitter when you report the posts. The reporting systems were and still are useless.
‘When you block the main trolling accounts, they make new ones within minutes and hours, and the whole cycle starts all over again, but worse.
‘The more I ignored my attackers and critics the worse it got.
‘My home address was repeatedly publicly published online, on social media, on blog platforms. I received multiple threats. My online friends, family anyone linked to me were stalked and targeted.
‘I received hate mail posted to my home. The pile-ons continued because people thought I was ‘weak’ for going to the High Court because of, what they said were “hurty words” online.
She added: ‘What has happened to me for the last 12 years online is a lot more than just bl**dy “hurty words” on the internet’.
Ms Brookes has campaigned for the Government to better tackle online abuse and also wants social media platforms and tech giants to do more to act.
‘Debate and a difference of opinion is one thing. But, the constant social media public character assassination of me, spread and joined in with by social media users was sinister.
‘Deliberately meant to cause me harm, distress and to disrupt my life – And if they can’t find anything to use against you – they make it up’.
She added: ‘I coped by speaking out even more.
‘The criminal perpetrators were trying to silence me. The police and CPS were trying to silence me. The public pile-ons were trying to silence me.
‘It made me angry, I channelled that anger and disgust in fighting for justice and accountability for many years.
‘I was focused on my multiple criminal and civil legal cases, I was able to ‘block out’ the noise on social media – I wasn’t a big user of it.
‘I choose to keep my Facebook and Twitter accounts small. I just have 9 Facebook friends because I don’t use Facebook. And I’ve only logged on twice in seven years to get old evidence contained on my account.
‘I deliberately keep my Twitter account open, but small. My legal cases are still ongoing, I keep my Twitter account to continue to gather evidence for legal purposes’.
But she warns: ‘It’s now nearly 2025, and it’s now much worse’.
