Toby Melville / Reuters

Britain's Tom Daley prepares to take part in the Olympic men's synchronised 10-meter platform final on Tuesday.

LONDON -- A British teenager was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of making "malicious" remarks, after a death threat to U.K. Olympic medal hopeful Tom Daley appeared on Twitter. 

The profanity-strewn tweets -- on an account NBC News has chosen not to identify -- also included the claim that the athlete had let down his dead father after Daley came fourth in the men's synchronized 10-meter dive.

Daley rose to fame in the U.K. when he competed at the 2008 Beijing Games at the age of 14.

Shortly after Monday's final, a message appeared on the Twitter account saying, “@TomDaley1994 you let your dad down i hope you know that.” 

The account was available to only confirmed followers Tuesday, but retweets of some of the messages showed the abuse continued with one talking about drowning Daley in a swimming pool.

The messages are part of an increasing trend in which celebrities and others are abused by so-called "trolls," who send abusive messages behind the seeming anonymity of social media sites.

Daley retweeted the message about his father and said “After giving it my all...you get idiot's sending me this.”

He then retweeted a number of messages from people calling for the Twitter account involved to be banned.

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Daley still has a chance of a medal in the individual diving event.

Daley’s father Rob, 40, died from brain cancer in May 2011.

'Dad was so supportive'
Before the Olympics, Daley spoke to BBC News about how his father "gave me all the inspiration that I've needed.”

“Winning a medal would make all the struggles that I've had worthwhile. It's been my dream since a very young age to compete at an Olympics,” Daley said.

Matt Cardy / Getty Images, file

Tom Daley (second from right) follows the coffin carrying his father as it leaves St. Mary's Church Plympton, England, on June 8, 2011.

“I'm doing it for myself and my dad. It was both our dreams from a very young age. I always wanted to do it and Dad was so supportive of everything. It would make it extra special to do it for him,” he added.

Don't tweet if you want TV, London Olympic fans told

As news of the offensive tweet began to spread, a message directed at Daley appeared on the Twitter account saying “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.”

“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,” it added.

Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor

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A diverse community in East London will welcome the world to Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. Meet residents and hear how they feel about having a huge, world stage in their backyard.

Launch slideshow

The brief description of the Twitter account holder, who has nearly 50,000 followers, apparently quotes another tweeter as saying he was “gorgeous and the sweetest boy ever."

Dorset Police said in a message on its Twitter account that a “17-year-old man arrested this morning at a guest house in the Weymouth area” in relation to “tweets to @TomDaley1994,” adding that the investigation was ongoing.

A spokeswoman for Dorset Police told NBCNews.com that the teen was held on suspicion of making "malicious communications."

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There are calls for a shark cull in western Australia after what one expert called an "unprecedented" number of deadly attacks, local media reported Sunday.

A 13-feet-long great white shark has been blamed for the latest fatality – the fourth in seven months – involving a scuba diver early on Saturday.

Peter Kurmann, a 33-year-old businessman and father of two young sons, was diving about a mile off Stratham Beach, 140 miles south of Perth, Western Australia (WA) according to a report in The Australian. It said the victim’s brother saw a ‘dark shape’ in the water at the time of the tragedy.

Scuba diver killed in Australia shark attack

In October, a 32-year-old man from Texas, George Wainwright, was killed by a shark off Rottnest Island along the same stretch of coast.

Ian Stubbs, mayor of the local Busselton area, has suggested a cull, saying the attacks are affecting tourism, the newspaper said.

“I think there should be a culling program because it's gone too crazy,” he was quoted as saying. “How many more of these tragic deaths can we continue to have? It's far too many."

Senior shark research scientist Rory McAuley told news site Perth Now that the current spate of attacks was "unprecedented”.

"I'm not aware of any series of fatal shark attacks, this number, in such a short period of time anywhere in the world,'' Mr McAuley was quoted as saying.

"So we really can't tell what's behind that. Last year a large proportion of the global shark fatalities occurred in Western Australia.

"In other years we haven't even registered on the shark attack files statistics. So last year was particularly bad. This year has already started very tragically."

However, The Australian said the WA state government has ruled out a cull because of the difficulties in identifying the sharks responsible.

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted WA state premier Colin Barnett as saying: "I am not advocating culling at all but I think there may be some scope, depending on the results of the research project, to allow increased fishing of shark which used to happen and has been restricted for various reasons."

It isn’t clear why the number of attacks has risen so sharply, but authorities say there is no evidence shark numbers are increasing. Tina Thorne from the WA government's Shark Response Unit, told broadcaster ABC: "What we'd like to do is put some solid science behind some of those theories and prove them or disprove them.” 

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A 33-year-old scuba diver died Saturday in a shark attack off the coast of Western Australia, local media reported.

The man was diving with his brother around one nautical mile offshore near Busselton, which is 125 miles southwest of Perth, WAtoday reported.

WAtoday named the victim as local businessman Peter Kurmann.

Kurmann's brother Gian reportedly told officials that he had seen a 13-foot-long "shark-like" shape in the water.

Police said that all beaches in the area had been closed and that the department of fisheries had launched an investigation, Sky News Australia reported.

The attack occurred at 9:30 a.m. local time Saturday (9:30 p.m. ET Friday). It was not clear what species of shark was involved.

Local media said it was the fourth fatal shark attack off the Western Australia coast since September of last year.

WAtoday said Kurmann leaves behind a wife and two sons, aged two and four.

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