A BULLY who targeted her victim on social networking site Facebook and threatened to kill her has been jailed for three months.

District judge Bruce Morgan described what 18-year-old Keeley Houghton had done to Emily Moore as “warped” and “nasty” after hearing how she had been targeted on Facebook. Unemployed Houghton sobbed throughout the hearing at Worcester Magistrates Court yesterday as it was described how she had targeted Miss Moore for four years since they had been at school together, and had left the message on the website saying she was going to “murder” her.

The court was told how on Friday, July 10, Houghton had come across Miss Moore in the Vault Inn public house in Malvern and put her arm around her.

But when Miss Moore told her she would call the police if she did not leave her alone, Houghton replied, “I’ll give you something to ring the police about”, and later had to be ejected from the pub. Sarah Stock, prosecuting, said Houghton later posted the message on Facebook and claimed to police she had been drunk while she had done it.

Houghton, of Elgar Av-enue, Malvern, admitted the charge of harassment, and it was also revealed in court she had been expelled from school as a result of an incident with the victim in 2005.

Two years later she was found guilty of criminal damage to Miss Moore’s home after she kicked her front door.

Edward Gaynor-Smith, in mitigation, said the Facebook site was one that could only be accessed by members, and it had only been posted for 24 hours.

He said that since her first court appearance the case had appeared in both local and national newspapers due to the Facebook element, which had caused a “great deal of interest”.

District judge Morgan said that since Miss Moore had been 14 years of age, Houghton had “waged compelling threats and violent abuse towards her”.

He said: “Bullies are by their nature cowards, in school and in society. The evil, odious effects of being bullied stay with you for life.

“On this day you did an act of gratuitous nastiness to satisfy your own twisted nature.”

Houghton was sentenced to three months in a young offenders’ institute and given a five-year restraining order prohibiting her from contacting Miss Moore or commenting about her on any social networking system or website.

Emma-Jane Cross, chief executive of the charity Beatbullying, welcomed the sentence. She said: “Today’s sentencing of an 18-year-old girl for cyberbullying is the first of its kind in the UK and sets an important precedent.”