Angry couples use Facebook in court

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Warring couples are increasingly using information gleaned from social network sites to back up claims in divorce cases.

Divorce lawyers in the United States and Britain say they are seeing an increasing number of cases supported by evidence from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Personal information is also turning up in New Zealand cases. But while it may be embarrassing for those involved, warring couples cannot make it count in court.

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers this week said 81 per cent of its members had used or faced evidence taken from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn over the past five years.

"This sort of evidence has gone from nothing to a large percentage of my cases coming in," the group's president, Linda Lea, said. "It's very, very common."

Auckland family law barrister Simon Jefferson said the practice was not uncommon here.

"I've seen it but it tends to be of limited evidential use in New Zealand, it's much more an issue in the United States."

He said the reason was the American family law system was more fault-oriented than ours, with conduct much more relevant.

"In New Zealand conduct is excluded in relationship property matters and dissolution of marriage."

However he said information found on websites such as Facebook and Twitter was being used in local divorce cases but usually it only ended up embarrassing the other party.

"You're not going to turn up with a king hit piece of information extracted from Facebook and go 'gotcha' because conduct is less relevant."

It could count towards credibility, but that did not play a big part in family law, either.

"It is a potential weapon inthe arsenal of someone putting together a case. One is alert to it."

What was more common in New Zealand examples was "puerile, foul-mouthed and angry emails" turning up stapled to the back of affidavits and brought in as evidence or people making "grandiose" claims about being newly single on dating websites.

"It's irrelevant but very embarrassing."

Examples used in American courts were:

* A husband goes on a dating website and declares his single, childless status while seeking primary custody of his children.

* Husband denies his anger issues but on Facebook states: "If you have the balls to get in my face, I'll kick your ass into submission."

* Father seeks custody of children, claiming his ex-wife has little time to spend with them. He uses evidence of dates and times she played on World of Warcraft and Facebook's Farmville.

* Mother denies in court she uses cannabis but posts photographs of herself smoking the drug on Facebook.

Divorce lawyers Ken and Leslie Matthews, of Colorado, said such evidence was powerful.

"People are just blabbing things all over Facebook," Ms Matthews said. "People don't yet quite connect what they're saying in their divorce cases is completely different from what they're saying on Facebook. It doesn't even occur to them that they'd be found out."

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AP