A 17-year-old was arrested at a guest house in Weymouth on Tuesday morning after malicious tweets were sent to Olympic diver Tom Daley, Dorset Police have confirmed.
Police intervened after a Twitter 'troll' accused Team GB diver Daley of letting down his late father by finishing outside the medals on Monday.
Daley and his partner, Pete Waterfield, finished fourth in the men's synchronised 10m platform diving final.
Shortly afterwards, Daley retweeted a message from user Rileyy69 which said: "You let your dad down i hope you know that."
Daley responded by tweeting: "After giving it my all... you get idiots sending me this..."
Daley's father Rob died last year from brain cancer.
After the insensitive tweet had provoked a furious reaction on the social networking site, Rileyy69 attempted to apologise.
He then tweeted: "@TomDaley1994 I'm sorry mate i just wanted you to win cause its the olympics I'm just annoyed we didn't win I'm sorry tom accept my apology."
He later added: "please i don't want to be hated I'm just sorry you didn't win i was rooting for you pal to do britain all proud just so upset."
Dorset Police subsequently confirmed they were investigating the incident and an arrest was made on Tuesday morning.
A police spokeswoman said: "A 17-year-old male was arrested by Dorset Police officers in the early hours this morning at a guesthouse in the Weymouth area on suspicion of malicious communications.
"He is currently helping police with their inquiries."
Deputy Mayor of the Olympic Village Duncan Goodhew, a gold and bronze medallist in swimming at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, described the behaviour of the Twitter troll as "appalling".
"It is appalling that people behave that way. Becky Adlington, in fact, suffered probably far worse abuse, as well, if you remember the kerfuffle some years ago," he told ITV's Daybreak.
"I suppose that social media in one sense is fantastic, but turned the wrong way round it is very, very personal and it destroys people's lives.
"So I think people should be much more careful about what they say."
OSM Supports #stopthinktweet
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