McAlpine's lawyers set to target 'principle tweeters'

Lawyers for Lord McAlpine are expected to take a tougher line over "principle tweeters" who mentioned false child abuse allegations about the Conservative peer on the social networking site, The Sunday Times (£) reported.

QI regular Alan Davies, a reporter for TV station Al Jazeera, a Guardian journalist, the Managing Director of a public relations company and a former barrister are among thousands of Twitter users who alluded to the allegations, according to the newspaper.

Lord McAlpine's lawyers have found 1,000 "original" tweets and an additional 9,000 "retweets" - in which an original message is forwarded on by another Twitter users - and said the case could involve the largest number of defendants in British legal history.

Mr Davies declined to comment on the story, the newspaper added.