Newcastle Twitter Troll's Warning Over Binge Drinking

19 February 2015, 06:07 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A twitter-troll from Newcastle who was jailed for sending abusive tweets is warning others about the dangers of binge drinking.

24 year old Isabella Sorley, was jailed for 12 weeks for threatening Caroline Criado-Perez online while the campaigner was trying to raise awareness of the lack of women on British banknotes.

The keyboard-warrior threatened Ms Criado-Perez with rape and more on the social network in July 2013.

Isabella, who's now founded social enterprise Rethink Drink with help from the Princes Trust, began drinking heavily while a student in Leeds and admitted that by the time she graduated in 2012, she was drinking up to three bottles of wine, several pints of cider and numerous shots three nights a week.

Things only got worse when she returned to Newcastle and she admits to being very drunk when she sent the threatening tweets to the woman she had never met.

She said:
"It was the biggest mistake of my life. I was horrified, mortified.

I'm not that type of person. I despise bullies."

Isabella, who was banned from Leeds city centre during her time at university because of her behaviour said she wants to use her story to warn boozy students of the risks they are running.

She said:
"I was lucky I survived my university drinking days, I would wake up on street corners and in hospital and not know how I got there.

Students need to re-think their relationship with alcohol. Yes, go out and have a couple - but always remain in control.

Hopefully sharing my experience with them will help – even if we can help just one person it will be worth it."

It was not until she was serving a second prison sentence, for assault, in Low Newton Prison, Durham, last September that she kicked the drink and started to turn her life around.

She received help from the local Drug and Alcohol Recovery Team (Dart), to whom she is very grateful.

Through Rethink Drink, she hopes to tackle youth binge drinking and the peer pressure associated with it.

She said:
"I want to enable students to go out and enjoy themselves without there being serious consequences."