English seeks advice over Bebo claims 

A gay website claims a teenage son of National's deputy leader has been writing anti-gay messages on his Bebo site.

GayNZ.com has written a story about anti-gay statements attributed to Bill English's 14-year-old son Rory.

"What we realised was that he was a clear example of some of the homophobic comments that are on the internet, and that leads to appalling repression of gay and lesbian people," says GayNZ.com editor Jay Bennie.

In a statement Bill English said he was seeking legal advice about the GayNZ.com story which made unsubstantiated claims about the supposed views held by his teenage son.

He also said that he considered it a "disgusting and sick attack on a young teenager."

The Bebo site has been shut down although Bill English will not when or why that happened, or who decided to take it down.

Bennie, who is also consulting his lawyers, is standing by the story.

"We believe it's a very important story, we believe that legally there is nothing wrong with the story, this young man has published these comments publicly, Bebo is a public website anyone can read it, just as much as if he had signwritten on a sign and put them on Lambton Quay," he says.

In his statement Bill English says while his own comments should be publicly scrutinised as a politician, no-one expects that to happen to comments on an open teenage social networking site.

While English has not confirmed it is his son's work, he says it's a sign that any internet activity by politicians' family members is now fair game in politics.