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A British man who hacked into the Facebook account of Justin Bieber's girlfriend and threatened to publish their private emails has been jailed for 12 months.
Gareth Crosskey, 21, infiltrated the account of Selena Gomez after posing as her step-father, who has administration rights to the page.
Using a fake email account, the McDonald's worker managed to convince staff at the social networking site to reset the passwords on Gomez's account.
Crosskey then posted a video to YouTube demonstrating how he had hacked the page and went on to contact magazines OK and Hollywood Life offering to forward information about the star.
He was eventually traced to his home in West Sussex following a joint investigation involving the FBI and Metropolitan police's E-Crime Unit and costing more than £50,000.
Crosskey claimed he hacked into the account because he wanted to show Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg lapses in security at the company after his own account was hacked.
He also wrote to Gomez's step-father, claiming he had hacked into at least four personal email accounts and copied emails sent between Gomez and Bieber before the couple officially announced their relationship.
He told him: "Her personal email shows what her fans might want to see. I've made a copy of every email between Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez and Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. I think the paparazzi will have a field day."
It had been claimed Crosskey prompted a wave of hate mail directed at Gomez after he posted "Justin Bieber Sucks" on the star's Facebook page for her six million friends to read.
But the prosecution accepted there was no evidence to prove his connection to the message.
Judge John Price jailed the former fast-food worker for 12 months after he admitted two offences against the Computer Misuse Act.
He said: "You are clever with a computer and you hacked into the private part of somebody's Facebook account - that somebody was a singer, a celebrity called Selena Gomez. She had a Facebook account on which she has six million friends.
"They have permission to get into part of the account and you hacked into the private part by getting the private email password. People deserve privacy and should not their private correspondence by email made public."
Crosskey - known online as Pkinjor or prokill - had boasted about the attack to fellow hackers on internet forums.
Prosecutor Corrine Bramwell said there was no evidence to support his claim that he had access to Gomez' private emails.
She said that after the cyber-attack the celebrity's team spent three days trying to regain control of the account.
Gareth Morgan, defending, said Crosskey had since enrolled on a college course designing computer games.
"He accepts his actions have caused distress and alarm and he accepts that his actions were stupid," he said.
"There appears to have been no cause or benefit from his actions. It would seem Selena Gomez was plucked out of the air as a person to concentrate his attentions on."
