POLICE have issued an harassment order on the teenager arrested in Weymouth over Twitter threats to Olympian Tom Daley.

Malicious comments accusing the Team GB diver of letting down his late father after he came fourth in his event were posted on the social networking site Twitter.

The user apologised afterwards once 18-year-old Daley revealed the abuse to his Twitter followers – then later allegedly made a threat saying he would ‘drown him in the pool’.

Daley and his Team GB diving partner Pete Waterfield missed out on a medal on Monday when they finished fourth in the men’s synchronised 10m platform diving event at the Olympics .

As he geared up to compete in the London Olympics, Daley – whose father Rob died last year from brain cancer – said his dad had been his inspiration.

Following his event, he retweeted a Twitter message from user ‘Rileyy_69’ which said: “You let your dad down i hope you know that.”

Daley responded by tweeting: “After giving it my all...you get idiots sending me this...”

The same user sent several other hurtful tweets to Daley.

The user has a private Twitter profile. A petition has been started to remove the user from the site which has more than 14,000 signatures.

A spokesman for Twitter said it didn’t comment on individual accounts or police investigations.

A 17-year-old youth was arrested at a Weymouth guesthouse early yesterday by Dorset Police officers who were made aware of the tweets.

People in the resort were shocked to hear the arrest was made at a local guesthouse in the area which is hosting the sailing Olympics. It is understood the arrested teenager lives locally.

Dorset Police said the teenager was bailed pending an investigation into other communications on his Twitter account.

A spokesman for Dorset Police said: “The 17-year-old arrested in the Weymouth area, on suspicion of malicious communication has been issued with a harassment warning in connection to tweets to Olympic diver Tom Daley.

“In addition to the warning the teenager has been bailed to return to the police station at a later date whilst Dorset Police investigate other communications on his Twitter account”

It is understood Daley will be advised to keep off Twitter two days before he competes in the individual version of his event on August 10.

The arrested youth was also questioned about tweets which contained four-letter words and made a threat.

People in Weymouth reacted with shock that someone had been arrested locally in connection with the cruel comments.

The borough’s leisure and tourism spokesman Ian Bruce said: “I would say that the joy of having instant media is that we can share good news but the down side is people can use it for lots of abusive messages.”

Sharon Long, of The Lantana Guest House on The Esplanade, said: “I think the comments made were too personal and really awful. I don’t know what people who write cruel things are thinking when they do it.”