A DISTRAUGHT Irvine woman claims that sick internet trolls are ruining her life after apparently being targeted and falsely impersonated by an online hate campaign.

Donna Picken claims she has been bombarded with vile sexually explicit messages from a Facebook page titled “Donna Picken, professional de-florist”.

The 37-year-old’s personal information and photographs, including images of her daughter and friends, have been used by the page which she says is forcing her out of her home after apparently obtaining her location.

The page, which has since been taken down, was flooded with vulgar and abusive posts about Donna some of which the Times could not print due to their graphic nature.

Donna says that she was targeted by a group of internet trolls by commenting on a post defending a recently deceased man, after he was the subject of abuse.

North Ayrshire Police confirmed that they had visited Donna about her claims but revealed that they would not be investigating the matter and issued her with advice about online safety.

The Irvine mum also claims that she and many of her friends have hounded Facebook with a number of reports to the site, only for Facebook to warn her that she faced having her account deactivated for her persistent complaints.

A horrified Donna contacted the Irvine Times to share her ordeal and says that she fears for her and her family’s safety because of the abuse.

She said: “It all started when I woke up last Saturday to see private mails and a sick made-up page on Facebook about me.

“It said things about bestiality and stuff, I was absolutely repulsed when I saw it and I was physically sick, it was disgusting.

“It’s used all my images, pictures of me, my daughter, my friends so I phoned the police about it straight away.

“I showed them it and the things the person or people on there were saying like 'go kill yourself’ it was absolutely vile.

“However they told me it was a matter for Facebook. There was a previous page that was taken down but I was told by Facebook that this page didn’t breach any of their rules or regulations.

“I’ve been campaigning with my friends to Facebook to get it shut down and although I’ve had amazing support from people they’re still refusing to take it down.

“I was even warned by Facebook that my account would be shut down if I didn’t stop reporting the account.

“The stuff that has been posted on these pages is absolutely sickening, sick sexual messages that are destroying my family and people around me.

“They managed to obtain my location from accessing my page and I have no idea who is behind it, it could well be someone I’m friends with but I just don’t know.

“I am now in fear for me and my kids’ safety for absolutely no reason, I’ve done nothing wrong and it’s ruining my life.” A spokesperson from Police Scotland said: “We can confirm that officers from Police Scotland attended a complaint at an address in Irvine at 4.20am on Saturday, June 28.

“The complaint was in regards to Facebook and the complainer made officers aware that this was a second Facebook page after a first one had been removed.

“Advice was given by officers about online safety and the complainer said she was not feeling suicidal.” When the Irvine Times spoke to Facebook they were quick to investigate and subsequently deleted the fake profile.

Speaking to the Times a spokesman for Facebook said: “The page has now been removed. Whilst we can’t comment on the specific details of individual cases, profiles, pages, photos or groups can be removed from the site for a variety of reasons, including that an account was registered under a fake name or false identity in violation of our real name requirement; improper collection of personal information; issues which we’ve determined violate our community standards such as bullying, harassment or hate speech and Infringement of intellectual property rights.

“Facebook is highly self-regulating, and people can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive. We have clear rules to make sure the content and opinions our users create or share doesn’t go completely unchecked. We take our rules very seriously, and act quickly when they are broken.

“We encourage people on Facebook to continue to use our tools to report objectionable content so that we can investigate and take action.”