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Broadband bully faces trial after girl dies

A ‘broadband bully’ who used the internet to harass a teenage girl who later killed herself is to stand trial for charges relating to the alleged campaign.

Lori Drew, 49, used her broadband connection to set up a fake account on social networking site MySpace, where she posed as a teenage boy in order to send abusive messages to the girl, it is alleged.

Her victim, 13-year-old Megan Meier, later hanged herself after the broadband hate campaign escalated and the “boy” eventually broke off contact.

In what is seen as a landmark case for broadband law, Mrs Drew faces charges of conspiracy and accessing protected computers without authorisation. She is not being charged directly with the child’s death, although her defence team is worried that jurors will invariably associate the girl’s suicide with Ms Drew’s broadband harassment.

The broadband bullying is thought to have started when Megan Meier fell out with the defendant’s daughter. Ms Drew is said to have set up the fake MySpace profile – for a 16-year-old boy called Josh – and used it to send threatening and upsetting messages to the girl, including one that said the world would be a better place without her.

Ms Drew is being charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This contains laws usually applied to broadband hackers and spammers, but prosecutors will use it as they could not find an appropriate Missouri law under which Drew could be tried.

19/11/2008
Author: CompareBroadbandUK staff writer

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