{"id":13504,"date":"2019-01-06T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T14:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=13504"},"modified":"2019-01-06T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T14:35:08","slug":"us-troll-probed-after-armed-police-called-out-to-uk-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/01\/06\/us-troll-probed-after-armed-police-called-out-to-uk-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"‘US troll’ probed after armed police called out to UK homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police are probing allegations that a US-based cyber troll has left UK families “emotionally destroyed” by sending armed police to their homes.<\/p>\n

Gee Hussain, from Littleover in Derby, said he was woken in the early hours to find his home surrounded by officers responding to reports of a hostage.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussain is linking his case to several hoax police call-outs in Manchester that followed online abuse.<\/p>\n

US courts said a woman had been charged with harassment.<\/p>\n

New Jersey Courts said Nibah Gazi, 40, of Sullivan Court in New Jersey, had been charged with one count of harassment in relation to another case.<\/p>\n

Ms Gazi’s attorney, Martin J Jennings Jr, said Ms Gazi would be denying the charge and he was “unaware” of any complaints relating to other alleged victims.<\/p>\n

‘I was shaking’<\/h2>\n

Mr Hussain, a music promoter, said a woman he believed to be Ms Gazi had contacted him via social media in September, pretending to be a major promoter in the US.<\/p>\n

\"Texts\"<\/span>
Gee Hussain said he had been sent abusive messages and threats<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After initially liaising with her, he began to get suspicious and tried to cut contact.<\/p>\n

He claimed she then smeared him on social media and sent abuse and threats to his mobile phone.<\/p>\n

On 7 October at 05:30 GMT, Mr Hussain was woken by security lights outside his home and saw an armed police response unit on his drive.<\/p>\n

“I opened the door,” he said. “My hands were above my head. The police were shouting at me and I was shaking.”<\/p>\n

\"Rizwan<\/span>
Rizwan Mahmood says he had his front door smashed down by police as a result of trolling<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The police said a neighbour had claimed he was hitting his wife’s head with a gun.<\/p>\n

“I said ‘my wife’s asleep upstairs’. They searched my house and spoke to my wife,” Mr Hussain said.<\/p>\n

“It was terrifying. We have a quiet life here and this woman has emotionally destroyed us.”<\/p>\n

He said the police had been called to his house “more than 10 times”.<\/p>\n

Derbyshire Police confirmed Mr Hussain had been the victim of a hoax on a number of occasions and it was changing the way it dealt with such calls.<\/p>\n

The force said it was working with police in New Jersey to pursue an alleged perpetrator in the US but had not yet pressed charges.<\/p>\n

It said it viewed Mr Hussain as the victim of a crime known in the US as “swatting”, which refers to bogus reports designed to ensure police or SWaT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams are called to an address.<\/p>\n

‘Sickening to the core’<\/h2>\n

A similar pattern of online contact followed by hoax calls targeted Rizwan Mahmood, 38, a singer from Moss Side, Manchester.<\/p>\n

“She said I was killing a child at my home,” he said. “They have come round three times in the early hours and once we were out and they smashed through my door.<\/p>\n

“It’s so worrying. I’ve got two sons, aged 13 and seven, and they were really shaken up.”<\/p>\n

\"Sangeetha<\/span>
Sangeetha Singh believes Nibah Gazi pretended to be her stillborn baby on the phone<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sangeetha Singh, 55, from Gorton in Manchester, whose daughters Aashana and Sonalia are well-known Bollywood dancers, said a troll had pretended to be her stillborn baby.<\/p>\n

“It was sickening to the core,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said she believed there was a pattern to the abuse.<\/p>\n

“We are all in the entertainment industry with open social media profiles so our personal details are easy to find,” Ms Singh said.<\/p>\n

She said the police told her they lacked the resources to deal with an alleged abuser based in the US.<\/p>\n

\"Sonaash<\/span>
Sangeetha Singh says her family including her two daughters, both well-known Bollywood dancers, have been targeted by the abuse<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said its officers “have been investigating a number of hoax calls over the past 12 months that are believed to have been made by one individual from the USA”.<\/p>\n

“On five of those occasions, police immediately responded as a grade-one call, after receiving information that lives were in danger,” the force said.<\/p>\n

“On each occasion, it was verified there were no concerns for people’s safety and measures have now been put in place to authenticate each call made to police.<\/p>\n

“We are working with the authorities in the USA and exploring all opportunities to resolve this issue.”<\/p>\n

Mr Jennings described the charge against his client as “an unfounded statement by some complainant who lives 3,000 miles away” and said Ms Gazi herself was a victim of harassment and had filed a complaint to that effect.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police are probing allegations that a US-based cyber troll has left UK families “emotionally destroyed” by sending armed police to their homes. Gee Hussain, from Littleover in Derby, said he was woken in the early […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,3],"tags":[5858,2820,3537,556,5857,1312,1135,3264],"class_list":{"0":"post-13504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-cyber-troll","11":"tag-greater-manchester-police","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-new-jersey","14":"tag-online-abuse","15":"tag-social-media","16":"tag-swatting","17":"tag-trolling","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13506,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504\/revisions\/13506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}