The teenage girl who hosted a disastrous "let's trash my house" party was arrested yesterday on suspicion of causing criminal damage.

Rachael Bell, 17, was questioned by detectives then released on police bail, pending further inquiries, after she emerged from hiding to blame internet hackers for the £20,000 chaos, and to apologise profusely to her parents.

She accused schoolfriends of taking over her pages on the website MySpace to tempt revellers from all over the country with the prospect of drink and sex in an astonished cul-de-sac on a private estate in county Durham.

She said she was too scared to face her mother, Elaine, and father, Alan, who have been forced to rent temporary housing and are pressing for criminal charges against partygoers.

But although she spoke to her mother by phone, her remorse was undermined by the appearance of a message ascribed to her on a friend's MySpace site saying: "haaa ... well i hope u liked the party ... was fuckin wild like!!!! hmmm another lol???xx" (lol standing for laugh out loud).

The 17-year-old's apology claimed she had suffered a panic attack when she realized what was happening to her secret plans for a relatively modest do. Although her parents, who had gone for a caravan weekend with her sister and two brothers, had forbidden guests while they were away, she admitted asking round 60 friends and a couple of DJs.

"It was just supposed to be a party with a few friends and it turned into a complete nightmare. I'm sorry, mam," she said. "It was so surreal - it still seems surreal. You just can't imagine anything like it happening. I'm really, really sorry, I absolutely regret everything. I still haven't properly slept, I just keep waking up and thinking about what happened."

The party led to pandemonium in Woodstone village, near Houghton-le-Spring, as seven police cars, including a dog unit, sealed off the street and tried to cope with drunken teenagers - and allegedly some children as young as 11 - until after 4am. Enraged neighbours with golf clubs chased partygoers, who had arrived from as far away as London, blocking the cul-de-sac with minibuses and cars.

Mrs Bell said yesterday that the £230,000 house felt "as though it had been raped", with vomit, graffiti and urine on floors, clothes and beds. Her other children's things had been trashed in an apparent copycat version of an incident on Channel 4's teen soap Skins.

Fighting back tears, the 48-year-old teacher told Sky News: "A huge tragedy has happened here and I want people prosecuted for what has been done. That house has been torn apart.

"Rachel has got to take blame for organising the party in the first place. I can imagine she is in an awful mental state and fear she could do something to herself. But I don't know the full story and whether it was 200 or 300 people."

Mrs Bell has turned down offers of up to £5,000 to speak exclusively about the incident and, although distraught, she gave a tour of the wrecked rooms to the Press Association for all media outlets to share. She said she always kept the house "immaculate" and had left it in that condition. Her last words to Rachael were: "I don't want any kids or drink in the house."

Rachael, a sixth former doing A-levels at Park View school in Chester-le-Street, has a reputation for mild controversy, picturing herself on MySpace in Goth gear and with a can of lager, and scattering swear words through her entries about "hating" normal people. But she said yesterday the situation had completely overwhelmed her and phrases on MySpace such as "Let's trash the average family-sized house disco party" were hackers' work, not hers.

"The party wasn't supposed to start until 10 o'clock, but at half nine we saw people pulling up in cars," she said from a friend's house where she is staying indefinitely. "We didn't recognise them and didn't know what was going on so we bolted the door - but they just started climbing through the window.

"There were even 11-year-olds, year sevens from our school, trying to get in. I just had a panic attack because of everything that was going on, just because I was so powerless to stop it."

She claimed some of the gatecrashers had pretended to police that they lived in the house, but there some "nice people" who had tried to help. She said: "Actually, a lot of people even came back on the morning to help me try and tidy the place up. I thought I had a couple of days to clean the house before my parents got back. Then an ex-neighbour came and told me my mam was on her way home and everyone had better clear out - and I left."

"Reviews" of the party have started to appear on the internet, including one from a 19-year-old called Emily from Newcastle who talks about boys she met at the party, saying: "I was on a field with one of these people and in a bedroom with the other haha stunners.x"

A Durham police spokesman said the trouble was difficult to contain as guests had been invited into the house. He said: "Inquiries are under way and we plan to speak to as many of the partygoers as we can."

MySpace Messages

A message at the MySpace site about the party, left on Wednesday at 12.10 (all spellings as on the website)

heyyy, have you heard anything from the party or have any updates. just apparantly we have some info that there was press there this mornin, talk of the woods is that there was helipcopters n cctv vans around the estate on the night but i was in the house then so i dunno

A reply, apparently from Rachel Bell, avatar pictured above, left on Wednesday 12.38

haaa i no was'nt in any other photo's!! ekkk well i hope u liked the party ..was fuckin wild like!!!hmmm another lol???xx