THE controversial pro-independence blogger Stuart Campbell has been arrested by police after a woman alleged she was the victim of a two-year campaign of online harassment.
Mr Campbell, 49, who runs the Wings Over Scotland website, was arrested last Friday at an address in the Avon and Somerset area and bailed pending further enquiries.
The police said the arrest was “on suspicion of harassment and malicious communications”.
It followed a complaint from a woman in her 30s who attended a south London police station.
On the day of his arrest, Mr Campbell tweeted: “For sucky reasons totally outwith my control (don't ask), posts on Wings will be very sparse for an unknown period. Sorry, folks.”
Mr Campbell, who was born in Stirling but has lived in Bath since 1991, was the most prominent online campaigner for a Yes vote in the independence referendum.
An IT-savvy provocateur, he raised tens of thousands of pounds through crowdfunding appeals, commissioned opinion polls, and ran adverts on the Glasgow underground.
He also printed thousands of copies of the Wee Blue Book, which claimed to present “the facts the papers leave out” about independence.
He ultimately spent almost £70,000 as an officially registered campaigner for a Yes vote.
His Wings Over Scotland website continues to dissect stories in the media.
However the former computer games reviewer, whose social media posts are often filled with expletives, is seen by critics as a figurehead for the so-called Cybernats, inspiring the most obnoxious elements of the Yes movement to harass Unionists online.
He is also notorious for his previous comments about the Hillsborough football disaster, blaming Liverpool fans for the 1989 crush which killed 96 people.
In 2012, he said “every single solitary person who died at Hillsborough was killed by Liverpool fans”, adding: “If nobody pushes, nobody dies.”
Last year, the official inquiry into the disaster concluded the 96 had been “unlawfully killed” following negligence by police officers at the stadium.
Mr Campbell is currently suing the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale for £25,000 in a defamation action after she accused him of homophobia - a charge he strongly rejects.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “On 18 August a man aged in his 40s was arrested at an address in the Avon and Somerset area on suspicion of harassment and malicious communications.
“He has been bailed pending further enquiries to a date in mid-September. Enquiries continue.”
Mr Campbell has been asked for comment.
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