THE Liberal Democrats in York have been accused of a hi-tech dirty tricks campaign, after a rival’s name was hijacked online.

A local party activist has bought various website addresses involving the name of York Central’s Conservative candidate Susan Wade Weeks.

Anyone trying to access www.susanwadeweeks.com was automatically redirected to the site of the York Lib Dems. The same happened when using the suffixes .net; .info and .org The Tory today said she was “horrified” by what had happened. She said she thought such actions may even be unlawful, and she is currently seeking legal advice.

But Chris Wiggin, the Lib Dem who bought the domain names, said he had done it as a joke because Ms Wade Weeks had not bought them.

He said: “Politics is not all about being serious all the time. Sometimes you can have a laugh and joke about it, and sometimes people do not get the joke. That’s life.”

He said Ms Wade Weeks should have contacted him directly and said that, were she to do so, he would take the sites down.

Mr Wiggin said the move had been his idea, and not a party policy. He said: “It was just myself. As much as I do not like the Conservatives politically, I am not a nasty person. I do not do things to be underhand or malicious.”

Ms Wade Weeks said the ploy was “underhand at the very least”.

She added: “It means they are really desperate and are quite rattled by the campaign.

“Everybody told me the Lib Dems were like this, but I thought they were exaggerating. Now I know they were not. My supporters were very surprised and horrified.”

Lib Dem candidate Christian Vassie, who will stand against Ms Wade Weeks and Labour’s Hugh Bayley at the next General Election, distanced himself from Mr Wiggin’s actions.

“I have absolutely nothing to do with it, and do not see that it has a constructive part to play,” he said. “I would rather have a discussion on policies and what needs to be done for York.

“Making it hard for someone to communicate what they are about is not terribly helpful.”

Nick Love, the chair of York Central Liberal Democrats, said it was a “storm in a teacup”, and “a bit of light-hearted fun” intended to show how disorganised Ms Wade Weeks apparently was.

Ms Wade Weeks’s website designer Jason Oliver, who first discovered the hijacking while building her official website, said: “Chris Wiggin is sending people to unwanted websites in an effort to embarrass, humiliate and damage Susan Wade Weeks.

“It is not only morally objectionable, but highly damaging to how the public perceives politics.”

After The Press contacted Mr Wiggin yesterday, he removed the automatic forwards from the various website addresses.