Prosecutors target first 'Facebook harassment' conviction

Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke...a Birmingham man is set to be the first in the UK to stand trial for harassment using Facebook.

Michael Hurst, 33, of Edgbaston, has pleaded not guilty to harassing ex-girlfriend Sophie Sladden. Appearing before magistrates, he was granted conditional bail to stand trial later in March, The Birmingham Mail reports.

He is accused of a breach of the Harassment Act 1997 when he used Facebook to contact Sladden on 21 January.

A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: "We have prosecuted harassment cases before where people have sent letters, made phone calls, and even text messages in recent years, but to my knowledge this is the first case where a website like Facebook has been involved."

Hurst and Sladden's Facebook accounts have been deleted from the site. [Perhaps the first time a person's info has EVER ACTUALLY been deleted. Or, more likely, they have been "deleted" from the site, but their emails, screennames, addresses, and mobile numbers have been retained. I mean hey, it's all in the privacy info.]