Lawyer leads boxing champ’s fight against Facebook

A YORKSHIRE lawyer is representing world boxing champion Amir Khan’s promoter Frank Warren in a fight against the Facebook website.

Leeds-based specialist sports and media lawyer Stephen Taylor Heath of Lupton Fawcett is representing the leading boxing promoter who, along with world champion Khan, wants the social networking site to stop allowing people to use their images and names on bogus pages that in some instances contain racist and defamatory content.

Mr Taylor Heath of Lupton Fawcett has been instructed to act on Mr Warren’s behalf against Facebook and also the posters of the bogus pages.

He said: “Facebook allows people to create pages on the site with information and pictures of themselves, and to communicate with friends and contacts. Unfortunately, some people are using the names and images of well known people on their pages to focus attention on their own opinions and comments.

“The problem is that when you search for a celebrity on the site you also come across pages using the celebrity’s name and image that have no official link but in some instances are full of defamatory and racist content.

 “This has happened to Frank and Amir. At the moment the owners of Facebook do not seem to be taking this problem seriously. We have written to them outlining our concerns but all we received was a standard acknowledgement. We are still awaiting a response from their legal department.”