A PROMINENT and notorious pro-independence Twitter user is at the heart of an unusual and murky mystery.

In a blogpost set up by an anonymous investigator, Claire Robertson, who claims to be a 24-year-old woman, has been accused of being Mark, a man in his forties.

Robertson is said to have used pictures taken from amateur pornographic websites to convince some of the account’s 82,000 followers that the account holder is female. Robertson has also been accused of trading in on the goodwill of other independence supporters by soliciting goods.

After the blog went up a number of other independence supporters took to Twitter to say they had been “duped” by the account into paying for takeaway food to be delivered to Robertson’s house.

One National reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, explained how she was befriended by Robertson and ordered food to be delivered to an address in Easterhouse in Glasgow.

“I was followed by Claire on Twitter so followed back. At first I thought she was a 24-year-old woman who was disowned by her family basically for being the black sheep so to speak. She said she had diabetes and congenital heart disease. She backed this up with photos of herself with scars.

“She then said her parents had been in their late 40s when she was born and all her siblings were much older than her. Her father was dead. Her brother had died through a drug overdose. She said her benefits had been stopped and she was hungry. I sent her two takeaway meals in one week through the Just Eat website.”

The only name on the Electoral Register for the address where the takeaway foods were delivered to is Mark Robertson.

Chris Darroch, another prominent independence supporter on Twitter, said he sent Robertson food: “I myself was tricked into believing that ‘Claire’ was without food, after a Twitter acquaintance told me that she was starving.

“Thinking she had diabetes, I thought it more critical to help.”

The investigator, who put up the blog alleging that Claire was a man, said he’d started the investigation after a friend of his received abuse from Robertson.

He said: “ A friend of mine was abused by ‘Claire’ quite badly. Someone pointed out to me that there were suspicions she was a man. Subsequent cursory investigations showed there were glaring inconsistencies in ‘her’ story. We decided to investigate properly after the abuse became too much to bear.”

The blogger sent a private investigator to Robertson’s house where the door was answered by Mark.

Robertson had previously caught the attention of the media for a number of racist remarks made on the social media platform and Youtube. One comment on a video of two people fighting said: “This is why you should control n*****s breeding”, in another she talked of a storm hitting Birmingham and getting “rid of all the p***s.”

Yesterday, speaking to The National by phone, Robertson denied the allegations and insisted she was a woman, that her name was Claire and that she was 24. She declined The National’s invitation to be photographed. She also said the racist comments were posted by an ex-boyfriend with access to her account.

“I am who my Twitter says I am, but for some reason people are starting to think differently, and there’s nothing I can do about that,” she said.

“I seem to have developed a bit of a following and I suppose I’ve ruffled some feathers so they’ve decided to make some trouble”

Robertson accepted that she had asked for food. Robertson also claimed that Mark the man who answered the door was her brother. She then went on to say that they had contacted the police after the blog went online and would now be moving house.

“What if someone decided to take a shot at me, grab me when I come upstairs at night? There’s a lot of crazies on Twitter.”