The Facebook pages of 30 British prisoners have been taken down because they were being used to taunt victims, it emerged today.
Britain's justice secretary Jack Straw said he approached the site three weeks ago to address the issue and requested the pages were removed within 48 hours.
“We’ve made requests for the removal of 30 sites and they’ve responded to do that positively, with no single refusal, within 48 hours, so we just want to push this forward,” he told the BBC.
Mr Straw said the Government would also be looking at other measures to prevent inmates from accessing web pages and abusing their victims.
“We’re looking at other ways in which we can raise the stakes against prisoners who seek to use these sites. It’s unlawful, it’s against prison rules which is the law.”
Mr Straw said officials are considering a change in parole rules and the rules for prisoners released on temporary licence, “to make it explicit that even if they’re outside prison, but if they are on licence, they can’t make use of sites in this way”.
The move follows several incidents in which criminals have reportedly used the social networking site to communicate with conspirators and ridicule their victims.
PA