A journalist fears the abuse of regional press colleagues is now “out of control” after sharing the latest threat sent to him by a reader.

Liverpool Echo political editor Liam Thorp has raised concerns after publishing the contents of an email which warned him his “judgement will be due very soon”.

In the email, shared on Twitter, the correspondent stated their belief that Liam and his editor was “responsible for thousands of deaths in this city with the fear you put out there with your disgusting journalism”.

The writer then told Liam, pictured, to remember “karma is a bitch and you judgment [sic] will be due very soon”.

The fresh threat comes after HTFP reported in January how Liverpool man Joshua Gibbs was jailed for two-and-a-half years over death threats made to Liam and another Echo employee.

Posting a screenshot of the email on Twitter, Liam wrote: “I go on about this a bit but I’ll keep trying to raise awareness of the daily threats and abuse reporters get – there’s a man currently in prison for threats to kill me and it’s not ok for people to drop me an email with s*** like this.

“So many in the industry going through this.”

Speaking to HTFP, Liam said the response he had received since going public on the threat had been “huge and entirely positive”.

He said: “I have had hundreds of really kind messages but also importantly lots of people from within the industry have been in touch to share their own experiences of abuse and hate.

“I think the situation is out of control at the moment and I don’t know what the answer is but I think we need to keep talking about it, because it is simply not OK.”

A recent survey carried out by outgoing Oxford Mail editor Samantha Harman revealed that more than 80 per cent of journalists surveyed said the problem of online abuse has got ‘significantly worse’ since they started their careers.

Samantha is now working with the Department for Media, Culture and Sport to help develop initiatives to tackle the issue.