Bloggers help track down cyberstalker who harassed 7/7 survivor

Bloggers led an online hunt which finally helped expose Felicity Jane Lowde after she repeatedly harassed Rachel North, who survived the suicide bombing of a Piccadilly line train.

Ms North has been a leading voice calling for an independent inquiry into the attacks two years ago and her online blog appears under the title Rachel from North London.

But she became a victim of online stalking when Lowde, 41, from Oxford, wrote her own blogs, accusing Ms North of lying, of inventing her claim that she had been the victim of a violent rapist in 2002 and of exploiting the 7 July attacks for personal gain.

Ms North described her ordeal at the hands of Lowde as "400 days of harassment, threats, obscenities and malicious complaints".

In one posting, Lowde accused Ms North of "making a living on the backs of the dead". She also sent emails of personal abuse.

Thames Valley police and the Met investigated the case and charged Lowde under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

However she failed to appear before Stratford magistrates in east London and was convicted in her absence.

A warrant was issued for her arrest and Lowde went on the run. But she continued her attacks on Ms North, updating her blog from internet cafés and accusing those who were trying to find her of engaging in a "Sicilian vendetta".

She said police officers were "abusive" and accused Ms North of being "a troublemaker in a league of her own".

At one stage, according to Ms North's latest blog posting, Lowde moved to only a few miles from her flat.

In one rambling message about Ms North, Lowde wrote on 20 December last year: "[The] campaign in the light of all manner of informed criticism appears to be nothing but an attempt to secure what seems to be an extremely insensitive 'limelight' quest... in order to promote an otherwise unsuccessful research/writing career, manoeuvre the press."

The abuse so angered fellow bloggers that hundreds - some of whom had also been vilified by Lowde - attached virtual "Wanted" posters to their pages, carrying a picture of her and the number for Crimestoppers.

Police officers monitored Lowde's postings and comments she left on other websites, in an attempt to trace the cybercafés she was using.

The Times reported today that Lowde was finally arrested at Café Naz-Express in Brick Lane last Thursday. She was brought before Thames magistrates court and remanded in custody pending pre-sentencing reports. She is due to be sentenced on 28 June.

Ms North said she did not want to comment on the case until sentence had been passed. However, in a blog posting she said: "I am just thankful this is over, (or almost over, because I am sure Lowde will try to appeal when she is sentenced)... I feel safe at last."