Police officers in the Forest of Dean arrested a 19-year-old man after he posted comments on the social networking site Facebook encouraging people to cause damage to a local shop.
Gloucestershire Police say a report was received on Wednesday, August 10 that comments had been made about vandalising a shop in the centre of Bream and officers quickly attended an address elsewhere in the village and made the arrest.
Sergeant Richard Pitman, of the Forest Local Policing Team said: "Once the initial message was posted on Facebook, there were responses posted from people saying they would go along with the suggestion to damage the shop.
โNaturally when this was brought to the shop owner’s attention by another member of the public he was concerned and contacted us.
โWe identified the person responsible for starting the comments and went to his address and arrested him for inciting violence. After taking him to Coleford Police Station we decided to deal with him by way of a Community Orientated Policing outcome, which was for him to write a letter of apology to the shop owner and remove the posting.
โWe feel it was a very foolish thing for him to do, and it was very worrying for the victim, particularly in light of events seen nationally earlier this week.
โI think this should act as a warning to others that what they post on sites like Facebook is not only distressing and worrying for others, but it could lead to police action and they may later end up seriously regretting their hasty postings."
