A NORTH-EAST teenager who posted a message on Twitter mocking those killed in the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy last month has been cautioned by police.

The 19-year-old of Sunderland was arrested after sending the offensive tweet just hours after six people died when the refuse bin ran them over in George Square, Glasgow, on December 22.

The man, who used an account called @RossLoraine, handed himself in to police after a number of complaints were made about the tweet.

The tweet read: “So a bin lorry has apparently crashed into 100 people in Glasgow he, probably the most trash it’s picked up in one day”.

Northumbria Police said today (Tuesday, January 27) that the man has been handed a caution for making a malicious communication.

Erin McQuade, 18, and her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68, and Lorraine Sweeney, 69, from Dumbarton, were killed in the disaster, as well as teacher Stephenie Tait, 29, tax worker Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh.

It is thought the driver may have fallen ill at the wheel as he travelled up Queen Street, causing the bin lorry to strike a pedestrian outside the Gallery of Modern Art.

The truck continued, hitting several other people and coming to a halt only when it crashed into the side of the Millennium Hotel in George Square.

A Northumbria Police spokesman said: “A 19-year-old man has been given a caution for making a malicious communication.”