Police in Australia, working an internet bullying case, used Facebook to serve an order against an alleged perpetrator.

The man, charged with using the social networking site to bully a woman in August 2010, was issued an intervention order by a court in Victoria that restricted any contact with his victim.

Police, however, had a difficult time serving this order, since the perpetrator could not be easily found via usual means such as address and phone numbers. The law had to get creative.

In a statement, Leading Senior Constable Stuart Walton said "He' d left his previous address, phone numbers weren't any good, and we had not other associates [through which] we could contact him. So I applied with a magistrate to have the order served by Facebook...The order was deemed served."

The Constable accessed Facebook, transferring the order into private messages and sending them to the Facebook account that the man had used for his crime. He also worked with police media services to videotape himself reading the order aloud and post the video.

Though the man did not confirm having read the Facebook messages, he was contacted by police following the serving of the order, when he confirmed having received the Facebook messages.

Leading Senior Constable Walton confirmed that the victim is satisfied with the outcome and that the unique method of serving the legal order had played a part in stopping the offender' s intimidation of the woman.
The constable was not able to work with Facebook since the company did not offer any help or information to the police. Leading Senior Constable Walton characterized the organization as " rather complex and bureaucratic," based on his interactions with it.

Using Facebook to serve a court order was the first instance in Australia of this technology being used in such a novel way in a criminal case. Police confirmed that it could be used again in the future if the situation warranted it as a tool for investigation.