Website where Beckhams' secrets are buried

There is a new force shaping Fleet Street's news agenda. Not since the Drudge Report has a scurrilous gossip website influenced so many morning news conferences. It's called Popbitch, and during recent days, it has provided the tabloids with the scoop of Victoria Beckham's pregnancy and given The Guardian the story about Sex and the City being remade as a children's cartoon. Even the Financial Times pursued Popbitch's report about David Beckham working with Marks and Spencer. And the website's mischievous tone - using unanswered "blind questions" to avoid celebrity writs - has influenced gossip columns from the Mirror's 3am Girls to the Mail's Wicked Whispers.

Yet the owners of Popbitch continue to shield themselves behind their anonymous website - although, as the Evening Standard has discovered-they have rather close links to one of London's largest magazine publishers.

The website is built around message boards on which anyone can post rumour or comments and a weekly e-mail summarising the highlights. Message-board regulars include well-informed sources in the music and PR industries, whose track record of success has earned the site a high-profile following: Sophie Ellis Bextor admits that she loves Popbitch - and Madonna dedicated a song to "all you Popbitches out there". (Indeed, past triumphs include the revelation that Madonna was to name her son Rocco, as well as the news last week of the singer's London stage debut.)

The messages are not archived, to make it harder for potential litigants to find evidence, but occasionally the legal threats fly. Jeremy Clarkson and members of So Solid Crew are among those who have been wrongly targeted with false allegations, and stories about them are now carefully filtered. Others, notably Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss, are considered fair game. A recent story claimed that Moss, on a fashion shoot in a derelict house, needed a toilet. "Well, there is a loo, but there's no door on it," the assistant told her. Moss replied: "Well how the f*** do I get in there, then?"

Who, then, is behind Popbitch? The website claims to be "a pretty amateur operation, run by people in our spare time", but gives no contact point beyond a single e-mail address.

So the Evening Standard made some enquiries. The website is owned by a company called Popdog Limited. A search at Companies House shows it is registered at an address in Limehouse and has two directors: Neil Stevenson and Camilla Wright. An examination of the internet domain-name registry confirms that popbitch.com was registered in 2000 to Stevenson.

Yet both Stevenson and Wright have proved extremely reluctant to take credit for their achievement. When we called, we were told: "We don't tend to talk to people on the phone." A follow-up e-mail elicited a brief reply from Stevenson, stating that "at the moment, we'd rather not talk to anyone about Popbitch".

He added that "we're currently finalising plans for some new Popbitch directions" and requested that "our identities are kept secret" - a privilege only rarely accorded to the celebrities whose private embarrassments have been shared with Popbitch's thousands of readers.

In homage to Stevenson, it remains only for us to complete our investigation in true Popbitch style. So here are a few Big Questions people are asking this week. First, is Neil Stevenson, 32, the same Neil Stevenson who used to edit Mixmag (for Emap), was previously deputy editor of Heat (for Emap), and currently works for Emap Digital? Second, is Camilla Wright, 31, his girlfriend as well as Popdog's company secretary? And third, are the rumours true that Neil wants to include as a Popbitch element the Heat TV spin-off that Emap is planning?

Well-placed sources within Emap suggest that the Popbitch TV rumour is merely a rumour. But that's the trouble with gossip. No sooner is it published than it takes on a life of its own.