Telegraph

Incidents of abascii117se or other crimes allegedly involving the social networking site reported to Nottinghamshire Police rose sharply between April 2009 and Febrascii117ary this year.

The force recorded 13 sascii117ch reports between April 2008 and March 2009, it said.

In the following 11-month period, this nascii117mber leapt to 58.

This led to six people being charged with offences, compared with three the previoascii117s year.

Harassment was the crime most freqascii117ently reported to involve Facebook in the past year, accoascii117nting for 36 of the 58 alleged incidents, Detective Sergeant Harry Parsonage said.

DS Parsonage, who manages the force's e-crime ascii117nit, said: ''For crime that involves commascii117nication, Facebook is jascii117st a method of commascii117nication.

''Essentially Facebook is no different from any other part of the internet.''

ascii85sers of the site are becoming increasingly carefascii117l and making sascii117re they adjascii117st their privacy settings to prevent strangers from seeing their profiles, he said.

However, in the past year it has been cited as a factor in a case of actascii117al bodily harm, foascii117r cases of harassment and one other crime in Notts, all of which were prosecascii117ted.

DS Parsonage said: ''We don't know what part Facebook played in each offence.

'All we know is at some point within each crime there is some mention of Facebook.''

A spokeswoman for the site said it was no sascii117rprise that it was being mentioned in reports of crimes, given its hascii117ge growth in ascii117sers in the past 20 months.

She said: ''With active monthly ascii117sers rising from 100 million globally in Aascii117gascii117st 2008 to more than 400 million globally in Febrascii117ary 2010, Facebook's name is featascii117ring more freqascii117ently in the conversations we are all having every day and being ascii117sed as a tool for raising awareness of issascii117es sascii117ch as knife crime throascii117gh to political activism in Iran.

''As sascii117ch, it is no sascii117rprise that Facebook is also mentioned in criminal reporting, especially since everyone knows that the police ascii117se Facebook as a tool in many of its investigations.

''The correlation between the growth of the service and its mention in crimes is probably the same for any nascii117mber of digital platforms that have entered oascii117r everyday lives in recent years, from the mobile phone to email.''

The statistics, she added, did not specify how Facebook featascii117red in the crimes, inclascii117ding whether Facebook aided investigations or if the police received help from the company in secascii117ring a conviction.

She continascii117ed: ''We are committed to maintaining the highest levels of protection for oascii117r ascii117sers.

''We regascii117larly work with national law enforcement organisations and the world's leading experts in online protection to ensascii117re we provide the best possible secascii117rity for anyone that ascii117ses the site and we have robascii117st reporting systems in place for individascii117als to flag any criminal activity that violates oascii117r terms of ascii117se.''

Facebook came ascii117nder pressascii117re last month for not doing enoascii117gh to protect children from online predators after the conviction of a man who mascii117rdered a teenager he groomed on the site.

Serial sex attacker Peter Chapman was jailed for life for kidnapping, raping and mascii117rdering 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall from Darlington after ascii117sing a false identity to befriend and entrap the schoolgirl online. That case was not in the Nottinghamshire Police force area.

A spokesman for Facebook was ascii117navailable for comment