“A false online story that the photograph of an ill boy lying on the floor of Leeds General infirmary was staged came from a hacked account, according to the medical secretary whose name was attached to the initial post.
The woman, whose name the Guardian is withholding because she says she has received death threats since the post was made, denied posting the allegation that four-year-old Jack Willment-Barr’s mother placed him on the floor specifically to take the picture, which was on the front page of Monday’s Daily Mirror.
“I was hacked. I am not a nurse and I certainly don’t know anyone in Leeds,” the woman told the Guardian. “I’ve had to delete everything as I have had death threats to myself and my children.”
She said she had tried to report the hack of her Facebook account to Action Fraud.
The row over Jack’s treatment has become a central part of the election campaign, with Boris Johnson being criticised for repeatedly refusing to look at the photograph he was shown by a journalist during an interview on Monday.
Despite the claim that the photo was staged having been acknowledged as false, it has continued to spread on both Facebook and Twitter, largely through individual low-follower accounts cutting and pasting the original text to share with their friends.
One version, posted by a man who claims to work for the British Army’s intelligence corps, has received 2,000 shares on Facebook; another, from a self-professed former soldier, has received a further 500. …”
East Devon Watch 