Saucy email floods City

It started out as a few intimate endearments from a girl to the boyfriend she had not seen for more than a week. But one click of the mouse and suddenly Sharon Dyson's salacious pillow-talk was winging its way through the ether to be read by thousands.

Within hours people who had never heard of Ms Dyson knew more about her than she had ever bargained for - from what she had been up to while abroad (verging on the unprintable) to what she would like to do with her boyfriend when she got her hands on him again.

Even worse than that, she made the cardinal error of making disparaging remarks in the email about her firm's clients - and her employer is now believed to be instigating disciplinary action against her.

Unlike the unfortunate Claire Swire, however - the PR whose sexual habits were emailed round the world three years ago - Ms Dyson was not betrayed by a boastful partner. Instead she fell victim to her own carelessness.

Ms Dyson, a client service manager for Hobsons, a student careers advice firm, thought she was just sending a private email to her young man, PR executive Alex Hewson, in a reply to a message he had sent her.

But, in a moment of absentmindedness she has come to regret, she sent it to everyone on his original recipient list - and instantly no fewer than 30 people were reading about Ms Dyson and her plans for the massage oil. They had two choices.

They could have kept quiet, felt sympathy for the embarrassed Ms Dyson and quietly deleted an email which clearly was not intended for their eyes. Or they could have forwarded it to all their friends...

The email, which will have been read by virtually everyone in the City and the media by now, starts off blandly with talk about how Ms Dyson spent Sunday shopping for clothes. Then Ms Dyson, understood to have been on a work trip to Australia, reminded Mr Hewson how he had promised to pick her up from the airport. "I have a big week this week, wish me luck Alex 'cause I'll need it," she wrote.

She continued: "My sunburn on my back is sore and I need you to rub some moisturiser in for me. We'll have to get some massage oil in too. You have made me c** a few times, not as good as the real thing but I guess we have to make do the best we can with what we've got."

The email went on: "The band I saw last night were SO good. I danced like a d**khead and a 17-year-old tried to pick me up (well he must have been 18 to get in but looked about 15). Oh Alex, I so wanted you to be there to hold my hand, I love music." It ends: "Smile beautiful, Sharon xoxo."

One of the best things about the email is a response to it, which appears to be from broadcaster Robert Elms. He writes: "Just a little note to say a very big thank you for livening up what was proving to be a very dull afternoon. People are talking about this being the best example of how to accidentally 'Reply To All' - personally, I think it's the best case of misuse of company email I've ever seen.

"I mean, come on, I quote 'Oh Alex I so wanted you to be there to hold my hand, I love music'. Who talks like that? What are you, like 16 or something? Alex, you need to sort this out. If she is 16, you're in trouble. If she's not then you need to get rid of her asap before she takes over your life..."

A spokeswoman for Hobsons said: "It is a private and personal embarrassment for her. But we have staffing procedures in place to ensure that if anything of this nature occurs we deal with it appropriately. It is against company policy to send emails of an obscene nature."

She added that the email was "not representative of Hobsons views in any way whatsoever".