Jack Monroe sues Katie Hopkins for vandalism accusation tweet

Hopkins admitted directing her tweet at the wrong person

Katie Hopkins (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

The journalist Jack Monroe has reportedly taken legal action against Katie Hopkins after she allegedly linked Monroe to the vandalisation of a war memorial on Twitter.

According to the Press Gazette, the libel lawsuit dates back to May, 2015 when the New Statesman contributing editor Laurie Penny shared an image of the women of World War Two memorial in central London with the graffiti message “F*** Tory Scum” emblazoned across it.

Ms Penny shared it, writing: “I don’t have a problem with this. The bravery of past generations does not oblige us to be cowed today.”

In what appears to be a case of mistaken identity, Hopkins then tweeted food writer Monroe directly saying “scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?”

The tweet has since been deleted, but was shared by Monroe at the time.

Monroe responded saying “I have NEVER ‘scrawled on a memorial’. Brother in the RAF. Dad was a Para in the Falklands. You’re a piece of s***.”

Monroe asked Daily Mail columnist Hopkins, who was writing for The Sun at the time, to remove the tweet and threatened to sue if she didn’t. In light of her infamous Sun column where she compared migrants to "cockroaches", Monroe asked her to donate £5,000 to a refugee rescue charity as well as making a public apology, the latter of which she did not do, although she did admit to getting Monroe and Ms Penny confused, before insulting both writers again.

According to the Guardian, whom Monroe writes for, Monroe confirmed the legal action but made no further comment.