Ashley James has hit out at ‘sick’ trolls for falsely calling social services about her children in a bid to destroy her reputation and career.
The influencer, 36, has two children, Alfie, two, and Ada, six months, with her partner Tom Andrews and has told how the stress of the incident gave her sleepless nights as she worried if her kids would be taken off her.
Last October trolls reported her for being drunk – when she was pregnant – at a party she threw for Tom’s birthday.
They also claimed that she left her baby to ‘cry out’. Both claims were completely false.
And Ashley is not alone with stars such as Charlotte Dawson, cleaning influencer Sophie Hinchliffe and MP Stella Creasy also being targeted this year but trolls falsely claiming their children were in danger.
Tough: Ashley James has hit out at ‘sick’ trolls for falsely calling social services about her children in a bid to destroy her reputation and career
Hard: The influencer, 36, has two children, Alfie, two, and Ada, six months, with her partner Tom Andrews and has told how the stress of the incident gave her sleepless nights as she worried if her kids would be taken off her
Ashley told The Sun of her experience: ‘When I first received the letter from social services explaining that they were investigating me I was pregnant. It put a huge amount of stress and pressure on me.
‘It was also embarrassing because I had to explain to all of my childcare providers what was going on, so they could speak to social services too. It was quite mortifying, incredibly stressful and upsetting.’
‘It is absolutely a form of harassment – these people will try and damage my reputation, doing extremely nasty and unwarranted acts such as trying to get me dropped from jobs or TV stations, by contacting people directly.’
She added that it was ‘sick’ that these trolls got a kick out of doing it.
Ashley told social services that they could come round day and night and would only see love in her household.
She has hit out at the trolls for pre-planning their attack to try and make brands she worked with think she was a bad mother in order to cause her ‘as much distress as possible’.
The star added that it felt like ‘harassment, stalking and an extremely sinister thing to do to someone’ and even considered hiring a private investigator to find out who was behind it.
Ashley was later able to present a dossier to police and social services officials which meant the case against her was dropped.
Horrible: Last October trolls reported her for being drunk – when she was pregnant – at a party she threw for Tom’s birthday
Mum: They also claimed that she left her baby to ‘cry out’. Both claims were completely false ( pictured with Alfie)
Tough time: She wrote last year: ‘Things I never thought I’d have to do this year include hiring a private investigator to protect my family and to protect our over saturated social services’
At the time Ashley slammed trolls for ‘taking away vital resources’ from vulnerable children’ who are at risk of abuse or neglect.
In an article in the i Paper, Ashley detailed the use of online forums, including Tattle Life, stating how it’s gone from gossiping on a celebrity’s appearance and parenting skills, to outwardly bragging about reporting a person to social services, with Ashley urging that more needs to be done to moderate this.
She told that while she has the upmost ‘respect’ for social workers and the need for confidentiality it made her angry that these false tip-off were wasting the time of social workers when they could be helping those actually in need.
She penned: ‘What sickens me is that these people who are making false allegations against me because they don’t like what I post on the internet, are taking away vital resources from children who face neglect and abuse.
‘I think of the little faces of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, the countless other children we see on the news. How could anyone want to waste social services time?’
The TV personality also called into question at what point does ‘free speech’ become ‘harassment’ as she spoke of online gossip forums purposely targeting celebrities, even encouraging others to report stars to services.
She shared: ‘At what point do we accept online trolling as “free speech” and at what point does it become harassment? Part of the Online Safety Bill’s goal is to make the internet safe, and with that what responsibility and duty of care measures should websites have in place to protect people?’
Shocking: Ashley told The Sun of her experience: ‘When I first received the letter from social services explaining that they were investigating me I was pregnant. It put a huge amount of stress and pressure on me’
Ashley went on to highlight the fact that excessive online trolling could have a detrimental affect on someone’s live, questioning how long it will be before the online actions have ‘very real-world consequences on their victims?’
Going on to later promote her article on her Instagram stories, Ashley wrote ‘Things I never thought I’d have to do this year include hiring a private investigator to protect my family and to protect our over saturated social services.
‘This is an ongoing story but I wanted to share where we are so that people realise that actions have consequences.
‘I’ve not updated this for a while, largely due to the investigation and also to protect my own pregnancy.’
