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INTERNET thugs have targeted staff at a shopping centre where a dad claims he was stopped for taking a photo of his daughter.

We can reveal detectives are probing hundreds of vile emails sent to the Braehead mall.

Office staff have been targeted in a hate campaign after Chris White, 45, claimed he was threatened with anti-terror laws for snapping Hazel, four, eating ice cream on October 7.

He started a Facebook page urging shoppers to boycott Braehead and was backed by 24,000 people within days.

Now worried bosses at the precinct - owned by Capital Shopping Centres - have contacted police after a flood of filthy and threatening emails to marketing staff.

There has also been a raft of abusive phone calls and police have told staff to be vigilant.

A source said: "It's mainly women who work in the marketing department and they've been left shaken by the whole thing. Some of the emails people have sent are absolutely disgusting."

Last Monday, Capital Shopping Centres issued an apology to White after the incident.

But Strathclyde Police denied they had stopped White because he photographed his daughter.

Bosses claimed that White, of Nitshill, Glasgow, had been accused of photographing a teenage girl who worked at the ice-cream parlour.

The officers have since been cleared of threatening White with the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

A spokesman for Braehead said: "We have received some threatening and highly abusive phone calls and emails.

"Where appropriate, these have been passed to the police. These have been extremely upsetting for our staff."