A HIGH Court judge in the North yesterday called for greater regulation of Facebook after hearing how a teaching assistant charged with child-sex offences used the social networking site to contact an alleged victim.
Lord Justice Girvan said there were extreme dangers of children being lured into inappropriate sexual activity.
His comments came as bail was granted to an 18-year-old man accused of targeting two 13-year-old boys he helped teach music to at a school in Belfast.
The court heard claims the man performed sex acts with one of the alleged victims in a storeroom.
The accused, who cannot be identified, is charged with engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and causing a child to watch a sexual act.
The alleged offences were said to have occurred in the city on dates between September and November.
Police and social services were contacted earlier this month amid concerns over comments posted on Facebook by the suspect, a volunteer teaching assistant.
Kate McKay, prosecuting, said one of the boys claimed the accused contacted him on the site under his own name and a false identity to suggest sexual acts.
The second alleged victim told police the accused showed him pornographic videos on a mobile phone and went with him into the storeroom.
Computers and media-storage devices have been seized as part of the investigation, the court heard.
The accused initially tried to justify his behaviour as having a laugh, according to the prosecution.
But Ms McKay said: “It was an abuse of trust.”
However, bail was not opposed on condition that the accused has no unsupervised contact with anyone under 18 and keeps away from both alleged victims.
Lord Justice Girvan also ordered him to surrender any mobile phone or internet devices and banned him from possessing pornographic material.
After being told how Facebook allows users to accept friend requests, the judge said: “This is a case which exemplifies the extreme dangers presented by the current internet system and particularly Facebook, which enables access to be given to young people in circumstances which can lead on to quite improper sexual activity.
“It’s quite time something was done about the regulation of things like Facebook on the internet.
“It may be a difficult task but something needs to be done with what is a current social problem.”