A British man hacked into the Facebook page of Justin Bieber's girlfriend Selena Gomez and threatened to publish private emails between the pair.

According to Britain's The Sun, Gareth Crosskey, 21, also wrote "Justin Bieber sucks" on Gomez's profile on the social networking site before the couple made its relationship public last year (11).

Crosskey was tracked down as a result of a $79,130 joint investigation by the FBI and Britain's Metropolitan Police, and was found to have posted a video online boasting about hacking the former Disney star's account.

Crosskey admitting to two offenses against the Computer Misuse Act during a court appearance in London earlier this month (May12) and was jailed for a year.

Judge John Price told him, "You are clever with a computer and you hacked into the private part of somebody's Facebook account. Selena Gomez 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 a private part by getting the email password. People deserve privacy and should not have their private correspondence made public."