A FOOTBALLER'S wife from Rossendale has described how her life was made unbearable after a sustained barrage of abusive Twitter messages.

Julie Neville, wife of former Manchester United and England defender Philip, has spoken out about her and her family's ordeal and has called for more to be done to tackle the problem.

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The mother-of-two, who is originally from Rawtenstall, has been subjected to 'terrible' and 'graphic' messages on the social media site over recent years which have left her concerned for her and her family's safety.

One tweet to the 39-year-old, who has 22,300 followers on the site, described how she was going to be raped while her husband was away playing for Everton.

Julie, whose family still live in Rossendale, said: "When I joined Twitter I never in a million years thought that I would receive this level of abuse.

"The messages have left me terrified and while I try not to let them rule my life they do make you more careful and have led me to rush into the house from the car with my panic button in my hand.

"I think you must have to be a despicable person to send these sorts of messages and I just can't understand why anybody would want to do this kind of thing.

"We said that our 12-year-old son Harvey could join Instagram but very shortly afterwards even he started to get abuse from grown men.

"It's not just people in the public eye that get targeted but also normal people and I want there to be more public awareness on this and the new laws to be implemented.

"I think these trolls do not understand the level of harm that they are inflicting on people and they need to be made aware."

A spokesman for Lancashire Police said: “People have the right to communicate, even to communicate in an obnoxious or disagreeable way, and there is no desire on the part of the police to get involved in that judgment.

"However there are many offences involving social media such as harassment or genuine threats of violence, racism or homophobia which can cause real harm."