A regional daily has threatened criminal action after intervening against an online troll who created thousands of bogus accounts on its website.

York daily The Press has issued the warning to the un-named user, who continued to spread misleading and insulting statements by re-registering as a commenter despite the newspaper banning hundreds of his or her accounts.

The Press has now employed cyber security experts to investigate the troll’s malicious activity, which it says “has plagued users of our website for years” and attracted hundreds of complaints from legitimate readers.

The probe found that in order to avoid detection the troll used Tor, free software designed for anonymous communication, meaining that from now on anyone using the programme to disguise their identity will be blocked from leaving comments on The Press website.

As well as using the name of a legitimate user – Anthony Gamble – the troll has created so-called ‘sockpuppets’, aliases independent of their main account.

The ‘sockpuppets’ would interact with the bogus Anthony Gamble, often agreeing with the comments posted by that account.

In a piece on the website of the Press, group editor Nigel Burton said: “We regret that this malicious individual has caused the real Mr Gamble distress and our sympathies are with him.

“Internet trolls work to undermine online communities and stifle legitimate debate. Today we draw a line in the sand and say: enough is enough.”

Nigel, pictured, added: “Security experts are continuing to investigate the malicious trolling. When we identify this person, we will not hesitate to take further action.

“We will also pass details of the crimes they have committed to the police and the evidence we have gathered against them.”

All accounts and aliases using the name Anthony Gamble have also been banned by The Press and the name – or any derivation of it – cannot appear in comments anywhere on its site.

The real Mr Gamble told the paper: “I’ve been a subscriber to The York Press for approximately seven years and it’s been particularly distressing to have someone impersonate me on the website.

“Comments that have been posted in my name have been inappropriate and distasteful.

“I am really grateful to Mr Burton and his team at Newsquest for taking these actions to put an end to what has been a challenging time for me and also to stop this happening to other people.”