UPDATE: Piers Morgan And Susanna Reid Lead Tributes To Captain Sir Tom Moore, Following His Death Aged 100.
Piers Morgan has blasted online trolls for targeting Captain Sir Tom Moore who is currently in hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
The 100-year-old war veteran, who was hospitalised on Sunday, has been trolled for taking a trip to Barbados back in December.
On Tuesday’s Good Morning Britain, Piers fiercely defended the charity fundraiser for going on holiday with his family, describing those who have attacked him as “disgusting vermin”
Piers said: “If your first thought is to troll him and his family on Twitter because they took a perfectly legal trip to Barbados, a trip of a lifetime to give him a break… He was offered a free trip and we have no idea if it had anything to do with his subsequent illness.
“We’re in February now, that was back in December, we don’t know that at all.
“But frankly that’s a matter for the family. He did nothing wrong.”
He continued: “I watched yesterday, Twitter has already descended into a total sewer over Marcus Rashford and other black footballers in this country, racial abuse spewing out from these anonymous cretins on Twitter. And then I see them turn on Captain Sir Tom Moore and I see them abusing him and mocking him.
“A man who served his country in World War II. A man who helped save this country from the Nazis, a man who, aged 99, raised £39million for the NHS, motivated all of us, inspired all of us, an ambassador for this country around the world.
“For these disgusting vermin to be abusing and mocking him and his family on Twitter in such a moment when clearly there are very serious concerns about his life, I find it utterly contemptible. What have we become?”
A statement released on Sunday, with the agreement of his daughters Hannah Ingram-Moore and Lucy Teixeira, said: “Bedford Hospital continues to care for Captain Sir Tom Moore. At this time members of Captain Tom’s family are with him. We respectfully request that media give the family space and privacy and do not contact them directly so they can focus on their father, grandfather and father-in-law.
The veteran’s family said he had needed additional help with his breathing and was being treated on a ward but not in ICU.
The statement continued: “The medical care he has received in the last few weeks has been remarkable and we know that the wonderful staff at Bedford Hospital will do all they can to make him comfortable and hopefully return home as soon as possible. We understand that everyone will be wishing him well. We are of course focussing on my father and will update you when we are able to.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.