Court clears Facebook user
2008-03-27 10:05
London - British magistrates cleared on Wednesday a 34-year-old man accused by his ex-girlfriend of harassing her on the social networking website Facebook.
Michael Hurst admitted sending a "friend request", which asks Facebook users to approve or deny whether users can view each others profile pages, to ex Sophie Sladden on January 21, but denied that he was trying to intimidate her.
He told magistrates at a Birmingham court that he did not think that being "Facebook friends" could be defined as "friendship in the traditional sense", noting that popular radio DJ Chris Moyles "has one and a half million Facebook friends, do you think he knows them all intimately?"
Sladden said that the "friend request" from Hurst, who had previously received a police caution for harassing her, had made her "feel frightened, it made me feel insecure".
After clearing him, magistrates at the court advised Hurst to "refrain from making any contact with Ms Sladden in the future".