Online abuse drives councillor to quit in Staffordshire Moorlands

A local councillor has announced she is standing down after 11 years, after enduring "misogynistic" and "utterly vile" social media abuse. This had included faked sexualised images of her wearing a bikini, Jill Salt, a representative on Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Biddulph Town Council, said. She added she would not seek re-election after her current term finishes next May. The images had been made by lifting genuine images from her Facebook account, she added. A male colleague, Nigel Yates, also "got some stick" from people online, but that no one had made images or video of him in his underwear, she added. "He gets stick online, which I can cope with," Salt said, "because that's about politics and it's about your job and it's about people disagreeing." She said the abuse she experienced was "something more sinister". Yates described the types of behaviour endured by Salt as "beyond despicable" and said it was "very disappointing" that it had led to her decision to stand down. "Nobody should suffer that type of abuse," he said. "She's a fantastic councillor, she really works hard in the local community. "She's got opinions, but we need to have opinions. We won't d