A feminist targeted by internet trolls because of her campaign to have more women on bank notes has revealed she is still experiencing daily abuse.
Police arrested several people who had allegedly threatened to rape Caroline Criado-Perez, of Rutland, after she was sent vile messages on Twitter.
Speaking at a conference in London this week, she revealed that, while she was no longer receiving as many threats, the daily abuse continued – and an offensive letter had been sent to her mother's house.
Caroline said: "The threats have more or less stopped – they only come through very occasionally now.
"What I now get is more general sexist abuse because now I'm sort of a lightning rod for it.
"I'm the person people think of when they think, 'Right, I want to go and abuse a woman, there's a woman who is really famous for being abused, I'll do that'."
She spoke about how much the threats and abuse had affected her.
"These communications hurt and irritate in equal measure," said Caroline. "When it was at its height, I struggled to eat, to sleep, to work.
"I lost about half a stone in a matter of days.
"I was exhausted and weighed down by carrying these vivid images, this tidal wave of hate around with me, wherever I went.
"And I kept being asked to relive the experience for endless media interviews.
"When I look back at that relentless attention, I can't quite comprehend it.
"It didn't feel real then and it doesn't feel real now. I still can't quite believe this has happened to me.
"I feel like I'm walking around like a timer about to explode and it takes so little to make me cry."
Caroline said the letter to her mother's home address, while not threatening, was intended as a warning that the sender knew where she lived.
Yesterday, she revealed that some Twitter messages she had forwarded to the police in London in the form of screen captures had gone missing.
She Tweeted: "Great, and now it turns out loads of screen caps I spent hours sending to police seem to have gone missing.
"What I can't face is having to go through the threats all over again to send them to police."
The Mercury asked the Metropolitan Police, which is investigating the abuse directed at Caroline, for a comment on the apparent loss of the screen captures.
However, the force had not supplied a comment by the time we went to press.
