Sex offender seeks damages over threats on Facebook

A convicted child sex abuser was threatened with being thrown off a pier after featuring on a Facebook page set up to monitor paedophiles in Northern Ireland, he told the High Court yesterday.

The man, who cannot be identified, also claimed he was hounded out of a cinema and had to use a supermarket trolley to fight off another tormentor.

He revealed the alleged intimidation as part of his lawsuit against the social media giant and a man said to be involved in running a page on it.

Damages are being sought from Facebook and Joe McCloskey for misuse of private information and freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment.

The sex offender is currently on licence after serving a lengthy jail sentence for indecent assaults on two victims – one a young girl and the other a boy.

But after he was released from prison his photograph and details appeared in April 2013 on the Facebook page “Keeping our kids safe from predators II”.

Mr Justice Stephens was told that up to 180 comments were then posted in response, most of them abusive.