Facebook trauma for mother
Police are investigating a case of intimidation after a mother was apparently verbally threatened by a neighbour who accused her 11-year-old son of a sexual crime against another minor
MBOMBELA – Police are investigating a case of intimidation after a mother was apparently verbally threatened by a neighbour who accused her 11-year-old son of a sexual crime against another minor. The mother spoke to Lowvelder on Wednesday and said the local community had threatened to burn her house down.
“The police arrived (on Monday) and asked my son some questions. The mother was shouting that she was going to kill my son, so the police requested we go to the station.”
A case was not opened against the boy.
“The next day was when the real trauma started when I went onto Facebook to see comments about my son and I. There were comments about how I am an unlawful mother and how I am covering up for my monster son and more horrible things that can’t even be said as it is to traumatic. There are even threats against our lives.
“I went back to the police station to ask what I could do. The police advised me to open a case of intimidation and advised me not to comment back on Facebook. People of the community are glaring at me like I am some kind of horrible person.”
The mother approached the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday to apply for a protection order against her neighbour. She was asked for her side of the story. Spokesman for the family said they chose not to comment.
Last year media had reported that a Johannesburg man had successfully interdicted his ex-friend from slandering him on Facebook and had ordered her to remove the posts from her Facebook page’s wall.
The judge, Mr Nigel Willis’s judgement in the South Gauteng High Court meant that Facebook users might be sued for damages as a result of defamatory remarks on the site.
On February 27, 2012 the woman wrote on her wall that her ex-friend was a bad father to his two children.
The court granted an interdict against the woman and ruled that if she posted any more defamatory remarks, she would be arrested. It also granted that she pay his legal costs.
Willis said where infringements of privacy took place in social media that the common law needed to develop.
“The law has to take into account changing realities, not only technologically, but also socially or else it will lose credibility in the eyes of the people. Without credibility, law loses legitimacy. If law loses legitimacy, it loses acceptance. If it loses acceptance, it loses obedience. It is imperative that the courts respond appropriately to changing times, acting cautiously and with wisdom.”
