DADSPLACE SITE SHUTDOWN 2

Sunderland Housing Group is seeking a court injunction preventing Dads Place website publishing allegations about its staff. After the legal action was launched, John Bains, the man behind the site, was named as one of four defendants in court action who are allegedly involved with the website.

The others are Pallion Housing Ltd, its managing director John Finn and John Edward Smith. The case is being brought by SHG and seven staff members, including chief executive Peter Walls, who claim they have been defamed by the website, which Mr Bains set up in 2004.

Mr Bains said he set up the site to highlight concerns on family law but began to receive information about the housing group and Sunderland councillors. The solicitor leading SHG's legal action Dan Tench said, "Although the authors of these lies have hidden behind the cloak of anonymity, we have discovered who they are. We will now ensure they are exposed to the full force of the law." He said the stories on the site had been "fabricated" and had "damaged the lives of their victims".

SHG lawyers have listed a further eight people as respondents in the case and will seek court orders requiring them to supply information about Dads Place. They include Sunderland Labour councillor George Blyth, Andrew Foster, who has admitted owning the site and Stephen Hanratty, who stood as an independent candidate in recent local elections. Web company Hotchilli Internet is also named as a respondent.

A Labour councillor has quit the party over his treatment by colleagues after being wrongly linked to the Dads Place website. Doxford councillor George Blyth was named as a "respondent" in Sunderland Housing Group's court case against the website, meaning he could have been ordered to supply information. But after the application against him was abandoned, with SHG ordered to pay costs, Cllr Blyth has resigned from Labour after claiming he received no support from the party.

He said he was "asked to account" for his actions based on "inaccurate" reports of the case. In a resignation letter to the party's general secretary, Peter Watt, he said, "At no time did my local Labour group offer me any support. Even though the court has confirmed that I am innocent, I have still been treated like a pariah." He admitted openly criticising SHG in the past, and questioning whether there are conflicts of interest for Labour councillors who sit on the company's boards, which he said "has caused some degree of hostility towards me".

Cllr Blyth plans to sit as an Independent councillor until his term of office ends in May 2008. Fellow Doxford councillor Mike Tansey quit Labour to stand as an independent in November 2005. Council leader Bob Symonds would not comment but Sunderland Central constituency Labour Party chairman Paul Watson said he believed Cllr Blyth had been "fully integrated" into the group and he called on him to stand down and face a by-election for his council seat. (Source: The Journal, Aug/06)

The chief executive of housing group Gentoo has been awarded £100,000 after a long campaign of online smears. Dads Place Publications subjected Peter Walls to numerous anonymous defamatory statements, suggesting that he was involved in a variety of nefarious activities on a professional and personal basis. Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Walls, said, "Dads Place used their publications, and in particular the website, to conduct a malicious, unpleasant and relentless campaign of libel and harassment. Walls was forced to withstand an almost daily barrage of anonymous allegations, threats and abuse, and suffered very serious damage to his professional and personal reputation."

The site was run by John Finn of Pallion Housing, via a staff member, and Finn has admitted to the campaign. He has agreed to pay £100,000 to Walls, £5,000 to Gentoo and £14,000 to other staff members of the company. Walls said, outside the High Court, "No amount of money can compensate my family for the distress these outrageous and false statements have caused us. What was particularly frightening was the fact that we did not know who was doing this or why. There is no doubt that the internet can be a fantastic tool for good, but we urgently need legal change to enable victims of internet abuse to have a quicker and more effective route to justice." (Source: Computeractive, Apr/08)

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