A cyberstalker who waged a “vicious, vitriolic and vindictive” internet hate campaign against a survivor of the July 7 London bombings was jailed yesterday.

Rachel North, a victim of the Russell Square attack on the Piccadilly Line, set up a website to help fellow sufferers from post-traumatic stress. The site was hijacked by Felicity Lowde, 41, a researcher, who befriended Ms North before turning against her and claiming on her blog and in e-mails that she was “making a living off the backs of the dead”.

Yesterday at Thames Magistrates’ Court, Lowde, from Oxford, was jailed for six months.

Ms North, 36, had feared for her safety after Lowde used her blog and e-mail to wage a hate-filled crusade of harassment for more than a year.

In April, Lowde was convicted of harassment in her absence when she failed to appear in court. She went on the run.

As well as the prison term, a restraining order and a five-year antisocial behaviour order were imposed yesterday.

The judge, who said he did not have the power to give her a longer sentence, told Lowde that she had struck at Ms North’s “terrible experience and trauma” as a victim of the bombings in 2005 in which 52 people were killed.

She had aggravated the situation by breaching her bail conditions, continuing to persecute Ms North, even though police were involved.

District Judge Malcolm Read told her: “The offences, I would say, are at the very top end to be taken in a prosecution of harassment and therefore have to be dealt with at the top end of my powers.

“You persisted in that for a considerable period of time, causing her intense distress.”

Lowde, who has a grown-up son, was charged under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 for the abuse waged against Ms North between May 2006 and January 2007.

Ms North said that the abuse had deepened her posttraumatic stress disorder and her sense of survivor guilt and left her fearing for her safety.

She had set up her blog, under the name of Rachel from North London, to help other blast victims. As a survivor she was able to recognise symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in people who replied to her blog, the court was told.

Lowde responded to the blog – but it was not long before “her sneer of cold contempt was writ large in her e-mails” to Ms North, Jonathan McGarry, for the prosecution, said.

Not only did she attack Ms North but she also contacted her father, a canon in the Church of England, and made postings accusing him of being involved in child sex abuse.

Mr McGarry said: “She was asked to stop this vicious, vitriolic and vindictive campaign and chose not to do so.”

Police officers who investigated the case were branded “corrupt” or “abusive”, Mr McGarry said.

While on the run after her failure to show up at court Lowde continued her attacks on Ms North, updating her blog from internet cafes and accusing those trying to find her of a “Sicilian vendetta”.

Ms North used her blog in an online hunt for the cyberstalker. Bloggers around the world attached virtual “wanted” posters on their pages, complete with a photograph and the Crimestoppers number.

Police eventually found Lowde at a cafe in Brick Lane, East London, after a tip-off.

Speaking outside court after yesterday’s hearing, Ms North said: “I would like to thank everyone who has supported me – my husband, my family, my friends, other web users, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.”

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