Cases of Facebook bullying have attracted much attention but this really pushes the boundaries.

After being legitimately chased by his former friend Raymond Bryce for a debt of £80, chef, Jeremiah Barber decided to get his own back by posting an indecent image of children on Bryce’s Facebook page with the comment:

‘Ray, you like kids and you are gay so I bet you love this picture, Ha ha’.

According to the Daily Mail the picture was ‘tagged’ with Mr Bryce’s name and 11 others, allowing his 800 friends and the friends of the those 11 others tagged in the pic to see it. Apart from the fact that posting an indecent image of a child put him at odds with criminal law, picking on an aspiring law student added a civil law sting to the tail too.

Daily Mail: Fearing he would be attacked by vigilantes, 24-year-old Mr Bryce reported the false accusation to police before launching a claim for libel.

Barber, also 24 and from Stafford, has already admitted making and distributing an indecent image and was sentenced to 150 hours community service.

But his victim, who is now a law student (at Staffordshire University), pursued the civil claim against his former school friend and was awarded £10,000 at the High Court yesterday for the stress and anxiety the incident caused him.

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It’s not clear that someone stupid enough to put indecent images of children in the public domain in such an obvious way has any idea of the legal consequences or even wished to hide the fact he had done it. But either way, it demonstrates yet again the pitfalls of using technical means of communication like email or social networking groups to express one’s opinions – what goes out there is generally traceable and once it’s out it’s out. So remember, every time you click send or upload, make sure it’s something you’d be happy for Daily Mail readers to get hold of and attribute to you…

“Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead,” Benjamin Franklin