Another was reclassified as an adult site because of the graphic sexual fantasies described in the chat rooms. But Donny MacLeod, who founded Garrawench, the site dedicated to Ms Garraway, insists there is nothing unsavoury going on and that his work is enjoyed by 18,000 people a month. "It's just a fan site for Kate fans, to learn about her, see pictures and talk with other Kate fans, nothing too stalkish (sic) about it at all, all very fair. I wrote back to say I took it as a compliment that he thought that I was pretty but that I didn't use an autocue and had two degrees. He didn't write back," she said.Meanwhile, over on GMTV, the female presenters continue to receive huge levels of interest from their "fans" much of it sexual in nature. After being contacted by The Independent, Yahoo blocked one site dedicated to Kate Garraway because it linked to a pornographic site. But there aren't too many sites devoted to men presenters," she said.Like other women in the business she has been subjected to unwanted attention from obsessive fans.
But more typical is the excessive interest paid to her appearance and downright hostility to her as a woman - something that the sites "don't help". "A few months ago I had an e-mail from someone who said "you are a pretty, blonde girl who reads out loud". "A presenter asked me if I could remove a picture that showed her backside. I'd rather not say who that was," he adds.Julia Caesar, who presents BBC News 24's business news and on occasions Breakfast News, says she felt "horrible and awful" on learning that she was appearing on such sites But the 33-year-old is now more phlegmatic. "You are on television in the public domain and people are entitled to have an opinion about you It is part of the job It is not something that worries me, it is just there. Mr Phillps claims he has had only had one complaint from the women whose images he posts on his site. Men are mesmerised by these intelligent journalists," he said.
More than 10,000 readers log on to the site each month.Like the other "tribute" sites, the main offerings are pictures or "caps" of the presenters at work, obtained by screen grabbing images using a TV card in a PC. Mr Phillp concedes that that interest in his site is "60 per cent sexual" and that a disproportionate number of "up-skirt" shots make their way on to the internet. But he claims he is offering an information service to "promote the artistic talents of the presenters" "The attraction is in the combination of beauty and brains. It also emerged that broadcasters had acted to close similar sites because of similar concerns.Martin Phillp, a 26-year-old community broadcaster from Bexley in Kent, runs Current Buns from an internet caf?n the Strand in central London.