![[The story as it appeared in the Telegraph and Argus]](t&a.jpg)
A Morrisons worker has been sacked and threatened
with legal action after creating a website attacking the firm.Clayton IT enthusiast Christopher Brown, 20, thought he had struck gold when he bought the website address wwwmorrisonsplc.com for £89.
by Suzy Poole, T&A Reporter, Mon Oct 23, 2000
A Morrisons worker has been sacked and threatened
with legal action after creating a website attacking the firm.
Clayton IT enthusiast Christopher Brown, 20, thought he had struck gold when
he bought the website address wwwmorrisonsplc.com for £89.
But he found himself jobless after bosses clicked onto the site and discovered
accusations of low pay and conditions.
The 20-year-old from Clayton, who has now accused the Bradford-based chain
of "bully boy tactics", says he plans to appeal against his dismissal.
Mr Brown, who worked at the company’s subsidiary Farmers Boy for four
years and was a factory operative, set up the site after buying the address
from Internet company ZYcom as an "investment".
But he was accused of borrowing the Morrisons logo and copying official
photographs for the site which criticised his £4.54 an hour wage and
working hours.
The web pages were closed down after the supermarket chain complained about
the alleged defamatory remarks.
And he has now been served legal documents claiming his site constituted
a trade libel, breached copyright laws and infringed the supermarket’s
intellectual property rights.
Mr Brown, who lives with his parents, said he was flabbergasted when he lost his job and was given 24 hours to sign an agreement not to repeat his actions and to hand over the website address.
He said: "I can’t believe a big firm like Morrisons should be so worried by a silly little webs ite. I feel bullied and humiliated. "I have been there for four years and used to like the job. I can’t believe it’s gone this far."
He claimed he had used the site to criticise Morrisons as his grievances had not been listened to and that he had hoped to sell the website address for £20,000 in ten years.
Mr Brown has now been asked to sign a legally binding document not to create similar websites, Out tile original request to return the address has been withdrawn.
A Morrisons spokesman claimed the content of the site, which has now been closed down, was "abusive in tone and language". He said: "While employed by Farmers Boy, Mr Brown secretly created a web site making us the unwitting target of disparaging remarks detrimental to the company’s good name and reputation.
"Mr Brown’s conduct in this matter was inappropriate and under the circumstances we felt we had no alternative but to dismiss him for gross misconduct. This is certainly a most unfortunate and regrettable situation for all concerned."
Heather Ross of ZY.com confirmed that the site had been closed down as the conditions of their agreement with Mr Brown concerning defamation and copyright appeared to have been broken.
Solicitor Louise Fullwood, of Pinsent Curtis, Leeds, said the case was unusual in that most ‘cyber squatters’ used addresses containing well-known names to either blackmail the company into buying the site or to use the name as a marketing factor.
She said: "If a name is used in bad faith to hold companies to ransom or it’s a case of misleading the public, it would be unacceptable."
She added that there were many hate sites on the Internet, particularly in America.
e-mail. suzy.poole@bradford.newsquest.co.uk