Q: When Do The Police Start To Take ‘Internet Harassment Campaigns’ Seriously?

A: When they themselves are on the receiving end:

A police officer was harassed by a civilian member of the force via Facebook after his dogs died in his car.

Well, so what?

Insp Gadget’s blog is always full of police whinges and moans about having to deal with the pointless complaints of the underclass that ‘someone’s dissed them on the Internet, innit?’.

Why should this be different?

Peter Haywood, from Clifton, became an administrator on the Facebook group "Prosecute Mark Johnson for allowing two police dogs to be cooked alive in his private car."

The group, which has since been removed from the social networking site, attracted in excess of half-a-million members, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Haywood posted abusive messages, encouraged abuse from others, gave details of PC Johnson's home address and his court appearances and posted photographs of him online.

The only thing that I can see that merits any kind of action – and that from the police disciplinary complaints team themselves, not the courts – is the publication of the officer’s home address.

Everything else...? Well, isn't he fair game for that?

The officer became aware of the Facebook site before his trial. He started to suffer from insomnia and also began making dummy runs from his address to make sure he was not being followed.

His wife became increasingly concerned and on May 10, last year, took an overdose.

She was given a panic alarm and described the experience as a "living nightmare".

You know how he could have avoided all this? He could have not left two dogs to die in his car through his own carelessness and incompetence.

That’s how I plan never to be the target of a ‘harassment campaign’. It’s working so far…

Judge Michael Stokes QC accepted that the extreme messages were not left on the site by Haywood.

He told him: "Some of yours are unpleasant if not nasty. You should have removed extreme messages but did not."

And if you didn’t, how is that suddenly a matter for the courts, and not for Facebook themselves?

Haywood received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, 150 hours of unpaid work and an electronically-monitored three-month curfew.

Hmmm. Remind me, what did Johnson get for his crime?

PC Johnson was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to his dogs after a trial in February 2010 and received a six-month conditional discharge.

Ah. Right. Welcome to the ‘justice’ system, where pointing out someone’s irresponsible and criminal conduct is now treated far more harshly than that conduct ever was.

After the case, Sergeant Jon Kerry said: "Haywood began a sustained campaign of harassment against the officer. His actions caused immense distress and fear for the officer and his family. Hate campaigns, cyber bullying and harassment are simply not acceptable. They will be investigated, with the perpetrator facing criminal charges."

‘Unless it’s between Shazneece and Tamsyn, in which case we’ll go on police blogs and bitch and whine about it…’