Man takes a selfie. Next minute, he is the victim of an online hate campaign.

How a simple selfie lead to a father being wrongfully publicly shamed.

For a Melbourne father of three it was embarrassing enough to be taking his first selfie in front of a Darth Vader cut-out.

When it ended up with him being branded a paedophile and his photo shared widely on Facebook it was more than embarrassing it was downright shameful.

The woman, who wrongly accused him of being a “creep”, has now begged for his forgiveness saying she wishes she could just take it back but unfortunately the damage was done the moment she uploaded the unfortunate post.

It began last week when the father was shopping at Westfield Knox, in Melbourne,  for a present for his wife. He told The Knox Leader he noticed a Star Wars display at Target.

The father, whose children are older teens decided to snap off a selfie. For this bloke it was his first.

“I have never even taken a selfie before,” the man said.

He told The Knox Leader “There were some children there and I thought they were waiting to have a look at the display and I said to them ‘kids, I won’t be a second, I’m just taking a selfie to send to my children’,”

“There was no other adult around at the time.”

Little did he know that the mother of the kids was watching him. She followed the man out of the store and took a photo of him herself.

At the time the mother was convinced that her children were in danger.

Her post read:

It wasn’t until the next day that the man began to receive phone calls at work after friends had begun to recognise his photo. The Facebook post had been shared 20,000 times.

“I felt sick. I am so embarrassed and devastated,” he said.

He immediately went to police and explained the situation.

“That’s more than what the woman did who posted my photo without any investigation or course of natural justice,” he said. “I understand that in the woman’s mind she was doing the right thing by her children but she has caused a lot of problems now for me. People need to get their information from proper news sources rather than rely on drama queens who share things without thought on Facebook.” He told The Daily Mail.

A family friend said the father was devastated and severely affected by the ordeal.

“The guy has a family and his own children, he sent the selfie to his children because he was being a daggy dad,” the friend told The Daily Mail.

“No matter what happens in the future this man has been impacted by her actions – I bet the story of his innocence does not reach the numbers that her original post met – her sharing a public apology would go some way to ease the hurt that a whole of number of people are feeling as a result of this incident,” the friend said. “There has been huge ramifications for a family and a man’s reputation as a result of her post.”

She told The Knox Leader that she had received death threats and she removed the post as soon she realized it was wrong.

The Knox Leader wrote yesterday:

The woman contacted Knox Leader this morning and said she wanted to apologise for putting the photo on Facebook a few days ago.

She broke down in tears several times during the conversation.

She had been unable to sleep since the incident and received two death threats, one in person and the other on Facebook.

Her children are set to receive counseling because they are so upset by it.

“My kids are now suffering because of a stupid mistake I made,” she said.

She has been trying to get in touch with the man and wants to apologise in person.

For the father the situation has left him devastated.

“’We’re a very strong, community-minded family and we’ve never had any issue with any form of impropriety and all of a sudden my name is smeared,” he told The Daily Mail

“I would like people to understand the perils of social media, especially unreliable and uncorroborated information.”

Want more? Try this.

The girl who posted a smiling ‘Auschwitz selfie’ has done it again.

To every mother who saw this photo today and felt bad about themselves.