Victory for Friends Reunited teacher

A retired teacher has won a libel action after a message on the popular Friends Reunited website claimed he had been sacked.

Jim Murray, 68, was said to have been dismissed from his old school for making 'rude remarks' about girl pupils.

In fact, he had taken early retirement 19 years ago after more than three decades teaching modern languages.

He can expect to receive up to £5,000 damages after suing former pupil Jonathan Spencer, the man who posted the message on the website which puts old school friends back in touch.

Mr Murray said he began legal proceedings after the administrators of the website offered to remove the allegation but refused to apologise.

He took his claim against Mr Spencer, who is now working as a teacher and is in his thirties, to a small claims court.

Mr Spencer failed to turn up for a hearing and the judge found in Mr Murray's favour. He will return to court next month to find out how much he will receive in damages.

He said he had been shocked when he read Mr Spencer's comment saying: 'I believe he (Mr Murray) was sacked for making rude remarks about the girls!'

Mr Murray said: 'I was appalled when I saw it. I didn't give 32 years' unblemished service in teaching for someone to do that to me.

'I knew it wasn't true but a lot of people visit this website so I couldn't ignore it. I contacted Friends Reunited and they took it off the site but they would not give me an apology.'

Mr Murray, who retired from Ridgewood School in Scawsby, South Yorkshire, in 1983, said he took his case to a small claims court in Lincoln because he could not afford to take an action before the High Court. Notice of the court hearing had been served on Mr Spencer at the school where he works in North-East England, but he failed to attend court or offer a defence.

Mr Murray, who now lives in Lincolnshire, produced written evidence to show he had taken voluntary early retirement and was not dismissed for misconduct.

'The most damages I can expect is £5,000 and the court may award me just a penny,' he said. 'But I don't care. It's not the money, it's the principle that counts. I just want people to know that I was not sacked.'

He had no recollection of teaching Mr Spencer and did not know what prompted the false assertion.

Friends Reunited is used to link former schoolfriends who have lost touch and want to make contact or find out what each other is doing.

It lists 45,000 schools and has 5million regular users, but teaching groups have warned it could be used to spread false rumours.

Last year the National Association of Head Teachers threatened to seek to have the site closed down after claims that it was featuring allegations of paedophilia and alcoholism about teachers.

After tightening its code of conduct the site, which is run by a husband-and-wife team in North London, now plans to branch out into reuniting former work colleagues.

Last night a spokesman said it was the first time anyone had taken legal action as a result of comments posted on the website.

'If we receive any report of an offending message, it is promptly removed from the site and we review it,' he said. 'On this occasion we removed the message as soon as practicable after it was brought to our attention.

'This kind of problem is exceptionally rare. The vast majority of users who contact us are positive about the site and enjoy the comments.'