TORY hopeful George Hollingbery has been told by party bosses to remove a website link after he scored an election own goal.

Mr Hollingbery was forced to back down after a row erupted over his 'cybersquatting' hi-jacking of Lib Dem Mark Oaten's name on the net to redirect people to his own website.

Mr Hollingbery claimed he had already taken the decision to remove the link, which took websurfers from www.markoaten.co.uk to his own site, after his joke backfired.

Mr Oaten said: "It's a silly thing to do, and rather annoying for people who are trying to find my website when they find they are looking at a Tory site.

"I guess they feel the only way anybody would visit their site was to trick them into it via mine.

"It's pretty pathetic."

Mr Oaten's official website is www.markoaten.com

But Mr Hollingbery defended his action, saying it was creative thinking and blamed Mr Oaten for not registering his own name.

Now in an ironic twist the Conservative challenger has received a taste of his own medicine after two bogus sites appeared in his name.

A disgruntled New Forest computer enthusiast has created www.georgehollingberry.com sending Mr Hollingbery up in what he says is a "tit for tat" game to teach him a lesson.

Nick Thomas-Webster, from Ringwood, said: "I set up this George Hollingbery website because he said Mark Oaten should have registered his name properly.

"This proves Hollingbery has not done his own homework. I don't live in Winchester and I have no affiliation to any political party, but I am concerned about Conservative 'sleaze' in general. We have not heard anything positive from them."

Meanwhile, another spoof Hollingbery site, www.georgehollingberry.co.uk has also materialised. However, it is not known who has created this one.

Mr Hollingbery is taking it on the chin: "I can hardly play cheeky games with Mark and take action over this. I knew it was going to happen.

"What I did was cheeky but it was not abusive in anyway to Mark, and I have since directed people to Mark's proper address through my website."

Two other election candidates -- Patrick Davies for Labour, and Independent King Arthur Pendragon -- have criticised Mr Hollingbery's hoax.

King Arthur Pendragon said: "I would like to put on record that I deplore these type of nasty tactics, which do not do justice to the positive campaigning the electorate of Winchester deserve."

UKIP's David Abbott was unavailable for comment on the issue at the time of going to press.

The controversy has also angered members of the voting public.

Mr Crawford Wright, from Swanmore, who called the Chronicle, said he deplored Mr Hollingbery's act.

He said: "Who would want a Member of Parliament that carries on in such an underhand way?"

Earlier this year Mr Hollingbery upset older voters with a leaflet targeted at them which they claimed was patronising since it seemed to imply the over 60s interests were confined to playing bingo, attending tea dances and lunch clubs.

It was illustrated with an old woman's claw-like hand crossing off numbers on a bingo card.