THE sister of a schoolgirl who was brutally murdered has shockingly revealed she has received rape and death threats.

Gemma Aitchison, who founded YES Matters after her sister Sasha Marsden was murdered nearly two years ago, receives up to 10 threats per week from cyber bullies who bombard her with horrific messages of violence on the internet.

Her younger sister Sasha was just 16-years-old when she was sexually assaulted and murdered by hotel owner David Minto in Blackpool. He was jailed for at least 35 years.

Ms Aitchison, aged 28, has reported the matter to police.

She says Yes Matters, which campaigns to raise awareness for a variety of issues including violence against women, hope to tackle the situation by visiting schools and educating young boys and girls about the issue.

Miss Aitchinson said: "I'm getting a lot of trolls at the moment. One group in particular who are relentless.

"I sent out a tweet about one of our campaigns where we set out one pair of shoes for every domestic violence death against women, and one person decided to chop half of the message in half and share it incomplete to his followers.

"Since then every 20 minutes I get a message from a troll threatening violence, rape — everything we are trying to stop.

"What they are doing is proving the point that we are trying to make.

"I probably get about 10 rape threats a week, and some go into very graphic details about what they are going to do.

"I have had men saying that they will do to me what happened to my sister."

Miss Aitchinson believes there are a number of reasons behind people's behaviour.

She said: "It's very difficult to tackle because the police do not have the resources to deal with threats of violence like this.

"One reason is that they can get away with it, there's no deterrent. There is also the control aspect and the fact that they want a reaction. There is also victim blaming.

"Even when it isn't online, when it's in the pub and it's called banter and 'boys being boys' — it normalises it and there is no comeback.

"That is the biggest problem, and we hope to get funding in February to allow us to go into schools in Bolton and conduct workshops with the pupils and the teachers which will hopefully spread the message that this behaviour is wrong."

On Saturday night, 16 representatives from YES Matters marched the streets of Bolton with signs emblazoned with issues they are faced with on a regular basis as part of their 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign, which started on November 25 and was run with Bolton Council.