Woman who falsely branded dad of three a 'creep' online offers public apology

A Melbourne woman has learnt a harsh lesson after she falsely accused a man of being a “creep” online.The woman has since offered a public apology after she upload a post to Facebook accusing an innocent man of taking photos of her children.

The mum took the photo of the man at Westfield Knox shopping centre, in Melbourne’s east, last Wednesday and uploaded it to Facebook with a tagline which branded the man as a “creep”.The post quickly went viral and resulted in the man, a father of three, being forced to contact police to explain what he was doing.

The deeply embarrassed father explained he was only taking a selfie in front of a Darth Vader cut out sign to send to his children.

The man was in Target on Wednesday afternoon trying to find a present for his partner's birthday.

But the damage had already been done with his photo being plastered across the internet.

The woman, who did not want to be named, told the Knox Leader that she had tried to contact the man to apologise in person after she had received death threats once her mistake had become known.

'It was never done with the intention of splashing it all over these social media pages,' she said.

'My children are going through an enormous amount of pain and I hate to think what (the man) and his family are going through.

'The woman said she had lost sleep over the incident and did not know if the man was planning to take legal action against her.

She admitted that she was ‘stupid’ to post the photo online and removed it as soon as she realized what she had done.

'One thousand times over I wish I could just take it back. I just don't know how to say sorry enough,' she said.The father who was falsely named and shamed told Daily Mail Australia that he and his children were devastated by the incident.

'I'm a father of three kids and a normal human being... I've never taken a selfie before,' he said.

'I was in two minds whether to take the selfie, but I thought it'll be a good daggy dad joke.'In real terms it was embarrassing enough to be standing in front of Darth Vader to be honest.

'He said he was considering his legal options after the woman’s post had been shared more than 20,000 times and seen by friends, family and colleagues across Australia.He had also received death threats before the mistake was confirmed.

'We're a very strong, community-minded family and we've never had any issue with any form of impropriety and all of a sudden my name is smeared,' he said.

'I would like people to understand the perils of social media, especially unreliable and uncorroborated information.