Removing/Hiding the Author Page

I’ve removed all of the links to and mentions of my author page located at http://tapner.co.uk/author/tapner/, previously http://www.tapner.co.uk/?author=1 from my blog. Although a temporary fix, I thought that would be the end of it. However, after searching my name on Google, I found that it’s still accessible. I’ve tried removing the entire code template from the theme editor in my WordPress control panel, but that leaves a blank white page when you visit the URL. I could then redirect that page to my homepage, but it’s messy.

Even if Google and other search engines remove the link (which I don’t think they will because it’s still active and their bots will continue to crawl it), anyone with basic WordPress knowledge could find the page.

I understand that I’m probably taking this a bit too seriously, but I’m the only one that’s going to be posting on the blog, so there’s no need to have it.

Is there a way to permanently remove or hide it?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.