Charity at centre of abusive tweet to JK Rowling closes

A charity accused of sending abusive tweets to JK Rowling for her stance on the referendum has closed down.

The Dignity Project claimed its Twitter account had been hacked after the abusive tweet went viral during the campaign last year.

Now the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) said the Edinburgh-based Dignity Project, which specialises in educational aid to east Africa, had applied to be officially wound up.

An OSCR spokesman said: "The charity applied to us to wind up and we granted our consent, so it has been removed from the register."

The charity was run by a couple called William and Barbara McDonald-Woods and the tweet read: “What a #bitch after we gave her shelter in our city when she was a single mum."

JK Rowling received widespread abuse last year via social media after she donated £1 million to the pro-union Better Together campaign.

The Dignity Project was set up in 1996, but has recorded an income averaging less than £2,000 a year recently, and has repeatedly failed to submit accounts on time.

However, the charity at the time of the controversy claimed to have been the target of hackers. "As a charity we do not take any political stance and our opinion is people are free to donate to whoever they choose," it said in a statement.