By Sara Oliver

OWNERS of a west Wiltshire boat firm are furious that their company name is being used on a gay pornography website.

Staff at Bradford on Avon Marina-based Sally Boats only discovered its name was being used for the porn site when they tried to register it for their own website.

Operations manager Chris Yalland said he and colleagues were disgusted when they saw the sexually explicit material.

He said: "We are a reputable family-owned company and what is posted under our name is quite abhorrent.

"We have customers from America and Australia and they use the internet to find out about us. They don't expect to put in our name and be confronted with a disgusting gay porn site."

Investigations by the holiday boat hire firm, which has been operating on the Kennet and Avon canal since 1989, traced the sallyboats.co.uk site to Henry Mendes da-Costa, of Towpath Road, Hilperton.

Mr Yalland said: "We contacted him and asked if he would sell us the name. He

e-mailed us that he might be interested in selling for £3,000."

But Mr Mendes da-Costa denied any knowledge of the porn site.

He said: "I have an antiques site that is for my personal use. I am shocked that anyone would think I would have anything to do with pornography. If I have been the victim of a prank, there is not a lot I can do about it."

Mr Mendes da-Costa said he was not aware of the Sally Boats company and could not remember what price he had said he would sell the name for.

He said: "I chose the name because I have a friend called Sally and I like boats, I wasn't aware there was a company of that name."

On Wednesday, the Wiltshire Times accessed the Sallyboats.co.uk site which was showing gay pornography. During the conversation with Mr Mendes da-Costa, we again accessed the site, at his insistence, and it was showing an antiques page.

Sally Boats also accessed the site at the same time, and printed the top page of the porn site.

l An internet expert accepted it was possible to tamper with someone else's website or website address.