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Facebook Reporting Restrictions

Oxford stalker acquitted of breaching reporting restriction as court rules legislation does not cover social media

By Angela Haggerty, Reporter

January 16, 2014 | 2 min read

An Oxford court has acquitted a stalker of breaching a child anonymity order preventing his victim from being identified because the legislation does not stretch to include information published on social media.

Case: The Oxford Mail Facebook page

Roland Der, 21, was acquitted at Oxford Magistrates Court on 2 January when the court ruled that section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1993 only covered court reports published in newspapers, or broadcast on radio or television.

The case arose after Der, who was banned from the town of Abingdon and given a two-year suspended sentence in November last year for sexually harassing a 15-year-old girl, posted an article about the case on the Oxford Mail’s Facebook feed and added the girl’s name at the end.

Ronan McCann, defending, told the court: “What the terms of the order state are that no newspaper report will carry the details of the relevant individual.

“It has been interpreted to confirm that social media is not covered by the wording of statute.”

Bench chairman Linda Goffey said: “This is a very difficult situation that is going to come up in relation to social media. We feel in this case that Section 39 was not contravened. It was not a newspaper report.”

The post by Der remained on the newspaper’s Facebook page for around 20 minutes before being removed.

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