'Social media mob wanted me and my family dead': Portsmouth starlet on fearing for his life after wrongly accused of racist Snapchat comments about England trio

Multiple death threats had condemned the promising Pompey striker to house arrest, a fortnight largely confined to his bedroom, admittedly for his own safety.

Sometimes there was a brief dash for freedom, with the 17-year-old slipping out under darkness for a clandestine visit to the local Co-op, identity concealed by black hoodie pulled over the head and face mask obligingly obscuring his features.

A social media lynch mob had arrested, charged and convicted Gifford in his absence, sparking Hampshire Constabulary fears of vigilante reprisals against an innocent man.

The message-board manhunt had been launched following the July 2021 emergence of a screenshot centring on a Snapchat group with links to Pompey’s Academy.

It captured racist comments directed at England’s Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka in the aftermath of the Euro 2020 final penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy.

The controversy dominated national headlines, but legal reasons prevented the identity of those responsible being revealed.

Amid the information vacuum and absence of verified facts, fingers were incorrectly pointed at Gifford, a member of that Snapchat group.

He became the victim of mistaken identity – and the subject of threats on his and his family’s life.

‘Social media is an extremely dangerous place. People wanted me dead, they wanted my parents dead, yet I was innocent,’ Gifford exclusively told The News in his first interview on the frightening experiences from 12 months ago.

‘There were hundreds of threats on my life through social media. Actually, if anything, that figure is probably an understatement. It was insane.

‘I was aged 17 and my name was all over Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, accused of something which I had absolutely nothing to do with. People had made up their minds.

‘Some messages hoped I got cancer, I saw that one quite a few times, others wanted me to be involved in a car accident. Apparently I was also going to hell.

‘Then there were the more menacing ones such as “Who do you think you are? Wait until I get hold of you, wait until I see you”.

‘They also wished my family would die, hoped for my house to burn down, for my parents to be hit by a train - or a bus. Everything you could imagine was probably sent to my phone at one point or another.

‘In another instance on social media, a guy threatened me, so I replied with proof that he was mistaken. He came back an hour or two later: “Sorry mate, you’re a great player. All the best for your career”.

‘About a month after the allegations came out, I’d been for dinner with friends in Portsmouth and we were walking back towards the train station when a guy, who was obviously quite drunk, confronted me in the street.

‘He got right into my face, threatening me, swearing at me, repeatedly saying “You’re a racist”. My mates had to step in and break it up, trying to explain to him what had actually happened.

‘It wasn’t just me either, my oldest sister Emily, who was studying at Bath University at the time, even received threats. It was stuff like “How can you bear to be part of this family?” or “How can your brother be as awful as this?”.

‘We can only presume people found her through looking up our surname on Facebook, then discovering pictures of me on her profile. It was a crazy time.

‘I was caught in the crossfire. As it was a group chat, some assumed we were all fine with comments being made. We were not.’

Following the July 2021 emergency of the Snapchat comments, Pompey acted.

A club statement said: ‘Portsmouth Football Club are fully committed to the elimination of all forms of discrimination.