Questioned about abusive email

[sinbad22uk]

I have recently been questioned by a local policeman about an email that has allegedly come from my IP address and has been received by a ltd company (8 months ago) that is about 200 miles away. I actually know of the company which is a competitor of mine, it is actually a 1 man band and know that the owner keeps closing and opening companies every 18 months or so under different names. If you do a search on companies house each company seems to get struck off and no tax return is ever made. I don't personally know the owner but have heard that he is unsavoury. Quite often I have heard reports that he does jobs cash in hand and at ridiculously low prices which of course he can do if he keeps closing down before tax is due. This has been very frustating over the years.
A police officer came to my house and questioned me regarding the email and if I knew who had sent it. My house has a wireless network that anybody in my house can connect to including visitors and my 2 sons friends. I said that I didn't know who could have sent it but he was quite at will to look at my PC if he wanted too as I had nothing to hide. He thanked me for that but as he found nothing he said that he would need to report back to the force that had asked him to look at it and would probably need to come back to question anyone who could have possibly sent it which I thought was really over the top. He then showed me the allleged mail but it was from an anonymous address and said something like the other company would be reported to all of its large customers for being a tax dodger and being a lowlife extremist. The thing is these are all things that I have heard when out and about and have openly talked about at home as this person gets right up my nose and has upset me alot, but I have never sent anything over the internet to this company and have certainly never reported them to any of their clients. My sons deny sending anything so it is a bit of a mystery. Where does this leave me because I can see that in the polices eyes I would be the obvious culprit? Should the police even be questioning anyone about this unless under caution? Also where does this leave me and could I be charged with something? Thanks is advance for your help and advice

[joko]

he sent to himself to stitch you up an shut you up

or pc is a pal blagging

police would not search for ips unless serious threats are made...

[sinbad22uk]

But I am not a business, when I say a competitor it is a competitor of someone who I work for, this has come from the IP of my home network not from a work network. The mail actually looks like the type that you would receive by filling in an online enquiry form on a website. It seems that an enquiry form has been filled in with this information as the title was something like website message. There is no IP of any individual PC it is the IP address of my router there are numerous devices that connect to this including desktop PC's , laptops of my sons and their friends who come round to play online games and do homework assignments , Iphones , Ipod etc so how could it be said that it was from any particular PC. Also the PCis real as I have seen him around for a number of years.

[joko]

i mean the pc is a pal of his.

also IP addresses can change everytime you turn the machine on and off - so do you have your own dedicated one..?

[sinbad22uk]

No , the IP was given to the police by the ISP and the message was received by a company in Glouceseter and I am from Greater Manchester, the Gloucester police asked my local police to investigate