A lot of people are not happy.
Everton picked up three points at Goodison Park this afternoon following a comprehensive 6-2 win over Sunderland. As is the norm at all Premier League matches, the local police were also in attendance to ensure crowd safety.
The margin of the Toffee’s win naturally meant that quite a lot of Everton fans took to Twitter to share their feelings of happiness. After the match, some Twitter users decided to tweet the Merseyside police and in this correspondence, as you can see below, it was insinuated that a ‘rape’ took place at Goodison Park, due to the large winning margin that Roberto Martinez’ side had over the Black Cats.
It goes without saying that the subject of rape is not to be trivialised or used as a subject for some ‘online fun’, but these replies from the Merseyside Police have aggravated a lot of people who felt that they belittled and mocked a very serious issue.
Here are screengrabs of the initial tweets and the controversial replies from the police.
The Merseyside Police have since provided this update on the situation.
We would like to apologise for any offence caused by inappropriate tweets from the force account this afternoon. They do not reflect (1/3)
— Merseyside Police (@MerseyPolice) November 1, 2015
the strenuous efforts made by Merseyside Police to investigate serious sexual crimes and protect victims. (2/3)
— Merseyside Police (@MerseyPolice) November 1, 2015
An full investigation has been launched into the inappropriate use of the Merseyside Police Twitter account. (3/3)
— Merseyside Police (@MerseyPolice) November 1, 2015