THE seller of a "Rainbow Glittery" poppy has responded after widespread outrage.

Ebay trader "vaikona" - who hails from Bradford - has sold his alternative poppy for the past year.

But, the listing was falsely picked up on social media as an "LGBT+" poppy, despite no official details defining this.

Read more about that here...

The seller - known only as vaikona - has now defended his decision to produce a "rainbow version", revealing there was some thought towards promoting equality.

They said: "Last year a friend of mine asked about producing a rainbow version and straight away I thought about Alan Turing and his struggles with being a gay man in WW2, so I thought it was a good idea."

Alan Turing was a World War Two codebreaker, who helped Britain win the war.

But, the "genius" mathematician was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 for having a relationship with a 19-year-old male, at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

Tragically, two years after being chemically castrated with injections of female hormones, rather than go to jail, he committed suicide.

Mr Turing was given a posthumous pardon by the Queen in 2013 for his criminal conviction for homosexuality.

Ebay seller vaikona said: "There was never any malice intended on my part to disrespect the red poppy and I thought it would be something different for people to buy and support the appeal.

"The fact that even the RBL are producing poppy badges with Football and rugby team logos alongside a red poppy could also be seen as disrespectful too."

Anger and outrage at the listing spiralled into vitriolic messages being sent to the vaikona.

Initially in response the seller added a message to the listing.

It said: "Please stop the vile and rude messages that you are sending me.

"I don't mean to offend anyone.

"I have only one agenda and that is to make money for a charity."

Vaikona eventually removed the poppy though.

The seller said: "Since I removed them from sale I have had loads of people trying to buy them because they like the design, even if it isn’t strictly anatomically a true poppy design."