SO the lesson a nastily little minority of Twitter users is trying to give this week is this: don’t have an opinion which is different to mine and don’t be a high-profile woman.

Bad enough that Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez had to put up with threats – including the threat of rape – for the temerity of wanting a woman to be featured on a banknote.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said a 25-year-old man arrested by Northumbria Police on suspicion of harassment of the MP was released on bail. Officers have also questioned and bailed a 21-yearold man in connection with the messages sent to Ms Criado Perez.

Then a number of female columnists who wrote columns about it were subjected to a bomb threat.

Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Europe editor of Time magazine Catherine Mayer received the tweet, which Dent took a screen grab of and posted for her Twitter followers to see.

The message was also sent to a number of other women, including Sara Lang, a social media manager at US campaign group AARP.

It was from anonymous user @98JU98U989 - an account which was later suspended - and said: “A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT EXACTLY 10.47PM ON A TIMER AND TRIGGER DESTROYING EVERYTHING’’.

The Metropolitan Police is now investigating.

Freeman said: “If it’s illegal to threaten to bomb an airport, it’s illegal to threaten to bomb me.’’ The police told her it was investigating as the threat was an “arrestable offence’’, and advised her not to stay at home overnight, the newspaper said.

Freeman said she had received “loads’’ of abuse via Twitter in the past, from both men and women, and had also received rape threats.

She added: “Threatening to bomb and rape people is illegal. We need to apply the law in the same way online as we do in the real world.

There should be a button to report abuse more easily. Twitter makes money – they can afford some moderators.’’ More than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling on Twitter to beef up its procedures for dealing with abuse.

But that’s not enough. What abusive trolls need is the shame of attending court in the real world where their real names are read out in open court for anyone to hear or report. Being named and shamed for your crimes is part of the punishment process.

The courtroom is where their nasty, dark activities should be given the scrutiny of the cold light of day.

Because if harassment is proven, it is a criminal offence. A report button on Twitter is nowhere near good enough.

And neither was the response from other columnists which focused on whether Creasy and Criado Perez should withdraw from Twitter.

If a woman was threatened with rape in the street, would she be told to stay inside her house and never go out again? Of course not.

A pack mentality has develop because of the anonymity some people have on Twitter and other social media sites.

And there is another important point. I would think most women would like to know that their next-door- neighbour or work colleague has made rape threats against a woman on the internet.

So would the perpetrators’ wives, girlfriends, mothers, daughters and sisters.

You might not want to live next door to Alice...

IDRIS Elba is not the only good thing about Luther, which concluded last week.

I had feared that its plot of ‘psychotic killer goes after helpless, weak love interest’ was going to lead us down a dark narrative path.

Enter sociopathic female assassin Alice, who steps in to rescue the hapless female, gives the psycho killer a run for his money and gets her bloke in the end. Sociopath she may be, but at least she’s strong and interesting, a British, female Dexter. I’m tired of screaming female victims in crime dramas.

And perhaps fictional portrayals are at the root of why so many seem to think women in real life should be victimised.