Twitter troll banned after vile racist comment to Wolverhampton's Beverley Knight
The Twitter troll who racially abused Beverley Knight has had their account shut down.
But there was criticism of the social network that it took almost a whole day to delete the offensive remarks.
Darren Cooper, leader of Sandwell Council, had his account suspended for six hours last week because he tweeted a picture of another person that he had copied from Facebook.
Yet @whitepride777 was able to call singer and actress Miss Knight a racially abusive word on Monday morning and the account remained active for the rest of the day.
Councillor Cooper, along with West Bromwich MP and prolific tweeter Tom Watson, are calling on the social network to act quicker on racial abuse in the wake of the language used towards Wolverhampton-born Miss Knight.
Mr Cooper said: "I have the greatest sympathy with Beverley Knight.
"That sort of language has absolutely no place on Twitter and should have been immediately removed.
"How is it that it can stay there for a whole day when Twitter can suspend my account over the use of a photograph that was already in the public domain?
"No-one should be subjected to the kind of abuse that Beverley Knight received."
Mr Watson, who has more than 161,800 followers, added: "Beverley Knight should not have had to put up with such a despicable attack.
"Twitter seemed happy to take down legitimate feeds, even temporarily suspending the one used by the leader of my local council.
"It seems remarkable that they could fail to act for so long on what was clearly racist and abusive language."
The Twitter account @whitepride777 had been re-tweeting blatantly abusive remarks, including the 'N word' before using it against 41-year-old Miss Knight.
Miss Knight brushed off the attack after sharing a screengrab of the message with her 107,000 followers.
She wrote: "I want to thank you decent-minded people which are the overwhelming majority here on Twitter. Thank you all for your kindness to me."
The abuse had been sent after Miss Knight had shared her opinion on a TV documentary, Meet The Ukippers, in which a councillor and former party member was shown making remarks branded 'deeply racist' by party leader Nigel Farage.
After using the racially offensive word and another abusive term, @whitepride777 told Miss Knight to 'go back to Africa if you don't like it'.
Twitter users were quick to point out that Miss Knight was born and raised in Wolverhampton.
Miss Knight also made light of the attack, saying her trip back home to the city from London, where she is currently starring in Memphis: The Musical, was 'only an hour in a car out, as opposed to several hours in a 'plane'.
