High threshold set for social media prosecutions

December 19th, 2012

Guidelines issued today on when criminal charges should be brought against people posting offensive or abusive comments on social media sites could boost free speech (more…)

Man jailed for “despicable” comments about missing April Jones

October 8th, 2012

A man who admitted to posting “despicable” comments about missing five-year-old April Jones on his Facebook page has been jailed for 12 weeks. Matthew Woods appeared at Chorley Magistrates’ Court today, where he pleaded guilty to “sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive” (section 127 (1) a of the Communications Act 2003). Woods’ comments, which included some of a sexually explicit nature about the youngster who went missing last week, were deemed so “abhorrent” that they deserved the longest sentence that could be passed, less a third to account for Woods’ early guilty plea.