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Autism sufferer Kevin Healey appears on Sky News to talk about cyber bullying

AUTISM sufferer Kevin Healey appeared on Sky News this afternoon to talk about the issues of cyber bullying.

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It comes after former footballer Stan Collymore and Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle was subjected to abusive and offensive messages on Twitter.

Kevin, from Newcastle, has found himself at the mercy of online trolls who have gone so far as to impersonate him by copying his Twitter account and sending out vile tweets in his name.

The 39-year-old, who has nearly 120,000 Twitter followers, believes the only reason for the abuse is because of his autism.

Kevin has now launched a global campaign to try to change the laws in the UK and USA to stop victims suffering cyber-bullying.

He said: “I socialise online and speak to my friends because I can’t really go out. My whole social life is online. So it really affects me when people troll me and say really vile things.

“People who are bullied online sometimes don’t know how to cope and think about taking their lives. The difference with an autistic person is they’d take things much more literally, so if they wanted to commit suicide then they’d just do it.

“People know that they can go online and troll people and say what they want because they will get away with it.

“If someone was found to be acting in a way that could cause physical or mental harm to another person through cyberbullying, trolling, stalking or harassment, they could be charged and prosecuted. The law as it stands doesn’t protect people from bullies.”