Childcare author Gina Ford has tried to shut down a website on parenting and is threatening to sue the site over comments about her made by some of the users.
The comments were made on Mumsnet, a website for parents set up by Justine Roberts, Carrie Longton and Rachel Foster. It hosts a message board that has up to 10,000 new postings a day and after a number of forum members made disparaging remarks about Ms Ford her lawyers wrote to the owners demanding that the remarks and the discussions they were in be removed.
"For the last six months I have been subjected to a long running campaign by which Mumsnet published very serious and offensive libels about me," said Ms Ford in a statement.
"I attempted to resolve the matter direct with Mumsnet but they refused to acknowledge any responsibility for these publications. Therefore I was left with no alternative but to instruct my solicitors to secure the removal of these publications."
She complains that some of the postings compare her to Middle East terrorists, which caused her "a huge amount of upset and distress". She continued that she did not want to pursue legal proceedings but if Mumsnet refused to stop this happening in the future she would go ahead.
She also denies trying to shut the site down, although her solicitors did send a letter to DCS, the company hosting Mumsnet, demanding that action be taken against the site.
"We are writing to request that you disable the website with immediate effect," the letter reads.
"DSC Ltd has an obligation, pursuant to S.1(1)(b) of the Defamation Act 1996, to take reasonable care in relation to publication of content on websites that it hosts, even where it is not the author, editor or publisher of the content in question. If DSC Ltd fails to take such reasonable care, it is our case that DSC is be liable for any defamatory statements to whose publication its services have contributed."
While Mumsnet has removed the offending postings and 21 whole threads, asked its members to refrain from posting any material referencing Ms Ford and instituted a policy of daily monitoring of the site in order to remove any future postings about her.
However they are refusing to pay damages or Ms Ford's legal costs so the case may yet go to court.
"So here we are: one of Britain's most wealthy and successful childcare experts demanding the closure of a community website run by mothers to enable parents to swap support, advice and the odd joke," the founders wrote on the web site.
