Man jailed for pretending to be Twitter stars

A FORMER soccer player has been jailed for 11 months after he purchased fake Twitter followers and impersonated other celebrities to make fake accounts for himself to increase his profile.

John McFakeson also used the fake Twitter accounts to engage with his followers to generate messages about stories that he said he had written.

The 29-year-old Bradford man, who now lives in Staffordshire, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court after admitting charges of three counts of impersonating other people on social media.

As well as spending the evening of January 29 harassing an alleged impersonator, he sent abusive messages to Ms Jennifer Fisher on January 30, started following her on Twitter on February 7 and sent direct messages and asked her for her number to contact her.

He began following actress Jenny Huttenhall on February 28 and sent her unwanted tweets, reportedly asking her for inappropriate photos.

He sent her comments on a Twitter story about her on February 28, in response to a humorous tweet about the latest scene in Game of Thrones episode.

He also tweeted a message to Ms Huttenhall on April 8, asking her to take him out for dinner at Soho House in London.

The offences involved four other women.

McFakeson was originally charged with six counts but pleaded guilty to three of them during the week.