Australian police serve court order via Facebook

20 Oct 2010

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An Australian stalker, who was harassing his former girlfriend on Facebook, was served a court order restraining him from bullying her, on his own page of the social networking site it was revealed by the Sydney police on Wednesday.

The accused had been found guilty of domestic violence and had been restrained from doing so by an Australian court, began harassing her on Facebook, two days after the previous order ended.

When the police could not trace the man, leading senior constable Stuart Walton of Flemington police, after consulting a magistrate, posted a file containing the intervention order, along with a video of his reading it out, on the bully's Facebook page.

''Later on, we caught up with the respondent due to unrelated matters and I had a chat with him,'' Walton told reporters in Sydney. ''He told me that he received the messages on Facebook and he understood them.''

Of course, it was not smooth sailing for the police, as Facebook refused to confirm whether the offender had accessed his page and read the document. Walton confirmed that the police had to use ''a bit of old-fashioned work'' to trace him, despite the Facebook posting.

But it proved to be very effective, as the stalker agreed to stop harassing his girlfriend and delete his Facebook page.

Australian courts have been quick to adapt to the new media. About two years ago, a court had agreed to the serving of a notice on two home loan defaulters through Facebook, as they were not traceable.

Similarly, a court allowed lawyers to serve a subpoena order on a rugby player via SMS.

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