Nimmo, 26, from South Shields, received a letter on Friday 5 June, from the Home Office. It says: "You are a person with no leave to remain in the United Kingdom."

Nimmo has only left the northeast of England once, for a court case in 2013, and doesn't have a passport. BuzzFeed News has seen a copy of his birth certificate, which confirms that he was born in the UK.

Emma Lewell-Buck, the MP for South Shields, told BuzzFeed News: "This is a very unusual case, and this letter must have come as a real shock to Mr Nimmo. It looks as though a serious mistake may have been made somewhere, and I have written to the home secretary asking her to urgently review this decision."

In 2014, Nimmo – who has what he describes as "moderate learning difficulties" – became one of the first people in Britain to be jailed for sending abusive tweets, after he sent the Labour MP Stella Creasy and the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez hateful messages. Recently, he spoke to BuzzFeed News about the episode, and admitted that his behaviour had been "terrible".