Police are probing a soaring number of death threats on Facebook.
The number has rocketed nationwide, according to figures uncovered by the Sunday Mirror.
Thugs have threatened to stab people, blast them with shotguns and in one extreme case a crossbow.
We used Freedom of Information laws to discover some 433 reports of Facebook death threats in 2019 – up from 356 the year before.
It is feared the true total is more than 650, as only 28 of 43 police forces in England and Wales responded to our survey.
The figures come after Prince William spoke about concerns around social media and pop star Jesy Nelson revealed her own Facebook torment.
Our findings will heap fresh pressure on Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant to take steps to protect users.
Nazir Afzal, a former Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: “We can expect these numbers to keep rising unless social media organisations take responsibility. Experience tells me police are playing catch-up with the online world.
“There aren’t enough officers in general, never mind specialist officers to deal with digital complaints.
“That would suggest to me these figures are an underestimate of what is actually happening.”
Sinister messages have been aimed at innocent Facebook users. One menace wrote: “You will die”.
Another said: “You low-life scumbag I’ll kill you... I’m gonna make sure you go 6ft down in the ground”.
An Essex thug threatened a woman with gang rape before claiming he was going to kidnap her school-age sister.
He later made the woman self harm and send naked photos which he then uploaded online. In West Yorkshire, a woman’s former partner left messages threatening to throw acid in her face, scar her and kill her.
And officers in Bedfordshire probed a video in which a thug threatened to use a crossbow to shoot somebody working in a pub.
Little Mix singer Jesy, 28, says she tried to commit suicide as a result of endless trolling. She made an acclaimed BBC documentary about her struggles.
On the night Little Mix won The X Factor in 2011, the first comment she saw on Facebook read: “You are the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life. You don’t deserve to be in this girl band. You deserve to die.”
In 2018 Prince William, 37, accused social media giants of failing to tackle abusive content and putting “profits before values”.
Facebook said: “We do not tolerate threatening behaviour. We work closely with the police when there’s a risk of physical harm or a threat to safety.
“Once made aware of content which breaks guidelines, we work quickly to remove it. We encourage anyone who comes across content like this to report it so we can take swift action.”
