A TWITTER storm of fake news saw Darlington teenagers caught up in the aftermath of the Manchester bombing.

The Express and the Daily Star published photos of 13-year-old Niamh Bishop after falling for messages from a Twitter troll claiming the images were of a missing schoolgirl named Lucy Cross.

In the days following the attack at an Ariana Grande concert, sick trolls deliberately attempted to mislead the public by circulating images of fake “missing teens”.

Many of their efforts went viral, with images of Darlington girl Niamh re-tweeted more than 16,000 times from an account that also featured pictures of her older sister, Anna Heward.

The troll behind the @_maddisonallen account claimed to be ‘Mads’, an 18-year-old dancer from Newcastle who regularly posted photographs of herself posing alone or with friends.

In fact, the photographs were taken from Ms Heward’s Instagram page without her knowledge.

It only came to light when Ms Heward and her family began receiving messages from concerned family and friends and saw the upsetting posts that were circulating online.

The sisters had not attended the concert and Niamh – contrary to information posted by the troll – was not deaf and did not have communication difficulties.

Posts were published on the account until Tuesday, when it was reported and subsequently deleted.

By then, the Darlington family say, the damage had been done.

More than 16,000 people retweeted the fake news, including North-East celebrity Scarlett Moffatt.

The issue was exacerbated further by the actions of news publications including the Daily Star and The Express, both of which reported Niamh as missing – with the Express also featuring her sister Ms Heward in its gallery of missing people.

Reporting by Allen White and Joanna Morris