A teenager was ordered to be detained yesterday for posting death threats on Facebook.

Keeley Houghton, 18, said on her Facebook profile that she would kill Emily Moore, 18, whom she had bullied for four years since they were at school together. Houghton was sentenced to three months in a young offender institution after pleading guilty to harassment at Worcester Crown Court.

On July 12 this year Houghton wrote: “Keeley is going to murder the bitch. She is an actress. What a f***ing liberty. Emily F***head Moore.”

The court was told that Houghton had waged a string of verbal and physical attacks on Miss Moore since the pair were 14.

District Judge Bruce Morgan told her: “Since Emily Moore was 14 you have waged compelling threats and violent abuse towards her. Bullies are by their nature cowards, in school and society. The evil, odious effects of being bullied stay with you for life. On this day you did an act of gratuitous nastiness to satisfy your own twisted nature.”

Houghton, of Malvern, Worcestershire, had two previous convictions relating to her vendetta against Miss Moore. In 2005 she was convicted of assaulting her as she walked home from school and was subsequently expelled from school. Two years later she was convicted of causing criminal damage to Miss Moore’s home after kicking her front door.

The court was also told that, two days before posting the threatening message on Facebook, Houghton had approached Miss Moore as she sat in a public house with her boyfriend. When Miss Moore threatened to call the police, Houghton told her: “I’ll give you something to ring the police about.”

Houghton was banned from having any contact with Miss Moore via any means for five years. She had tried to defend her actions, saying that she had posted the message while drunk late at night and had no memory of writing the threat. Investigations showed, however, that she had posted the message at 4pm on July 12 and that it had remained on her site for 24 hours.

Houghton said: “I don’t know why I’m here for trying to apologise. She threatened to call the police and all I was doing was saying sorry.”

Houghton’s defence team said that she fully accepted her part in the case and said: “When Miss Houghton was interviewed by police she fully admitted her involvement. She accepts unequivocally her responsibility in this matter.”

Yasmin Joomraty, a lawyer at Laurence Kaye Solicitors, a firm of digital media specialists, said: “Harassment, even online, comes under the Protection from Harassment Act and can create both a civil and a criminal outcome. Though this case does not seem to me to mark a turning point necessarily, people do have to watch what they say online.”

Cyber-bullying was believed to be the cause of the suicide of 15-year-old Megan Gillan, from Macclesfield, Cheshire, who took an overdose of painkillers after receiving abusive messages on networking site Bebo.

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