THE editor of Oxford University’s student newspaper said she was “infuriated” at a hoax bomb threat made against her and other female journalists this week.

Anna Leszkiewicz, 21, an English literature student at Lincoln College, was one of a number of female journalists who received a Tweet from an anonymous user, @98JU98U989, on Wednesday evening that claimed a bomb had been placed outside her Cheltenham home and would be detonated at 10.47pm.

The Tweet stated: “A bomb has been placed outside your home. It will go off at exactly 10.47pm on a timer and trigger destroying everything.”

Ms Leszkiewicz said: “I didn’t take it seriously at first and I didn’t think too much about it.

“But then I read an article which said that threats had been made against female journalists and so I called the police at about 8pm.

“Gloucestershire police were really nice and made an effort to come before the time the tweet said the bomb would go off.”

The threat was also made against female journalists Hadley Freeman, a columnist for The Guardian, Grace Dent, a writer for The Independent, and Catherine Mayer, Europe editor of Time magazine, before the user’s account was suspended.

Ms Leszkiewicz said she may have been targeted because she was a feminist who followed other feminists on Twitter.

She had also, last week, posted a message on the “Everyday Sexism” Twitter account, which aims to highlight day-to-day abuse against women, after she was subjected to sexist remarks in the street.

This is the first time Ms Leszkiewicz, who has only 159 followers on Twitter, has received abuse on the site.

She said: “It’s infuriating to think someone thinks it’s okay to do this. I was irritated by it and thought that it was unacceptable.”

The bomb threat hoax is the latest example of “trolling”, when people use the anonymity offered by social networking to make offensive comments and get a reaction without having to take responsibility.

This week TV historian Professor Mary Beard named and shamed a student who called her a “filthy old slut” on her Twitter profile.

A petition calling on Twitter to do more to prevent online abuse has topped 100,000 signatures and urges the site to introduce a “report abuse” button that is already found on the comments section of websites like oxfordmail.co.uk

Ms Leszkiewicz said: “It’s good there is more awareness about it and people are starting to think that just because abuse is online, that doesn’t make it acceptable.

“The problem is that technology is developing at a faster pace than the police or relevant authorities can deal with at the moment.

“A report button is a good place to start, but people are still learning about the best way to deal with abuse.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said it was investigating a series of malicious communications sent to a number of women on Twitter relating to bomb threats.

The spokesman said: “The number of victims is still being assessed.

“The MPS Counter Terrorism Command is investigating, in liaison with local forces, and inquiries are continuing. There have been no arrests yet.”