THE Odeon cinema chain has forced the closure of a website designed to help disabled users to book tickets for its screens.

Matthew Somerville, 23, a freelance web designer, created Accessible Odeon last July because the cinema company used Javascript, which is incompatible with programs that help blind people.

Mr Somerville claims, that Odeon’s official website is so difficult to use that it breaches the Disability Discrimination Act. Odeon denies this.

His website contained the same information as the official site but presented it in a way that worked for a wider variety of web browsers. But he had to close it last weekend after Odeon threatened him with legal action because he was using its name without permission.

Mr Somerville, who made no money from the site, claims that millions of filmgoers have used it to obtain information on Odeon’s films. The company said that customers had complained that they had confused it with the official website.

Luke Vetere, the marketing director of Odeon, wrote to Mr Somerville accusing him of infringing copyright. “We cannot allow the current situation to continue and so we insist that you remove . . . Odeon links and content from your Accessible Odeon Website and cease using our trade marks,” he said.

The Disability Rights Commission, the government disability watchdog, said that visually impaired users often had problems with Javascript because it is difficult to enlarge text or convert it into speech. “The law states that you must make ‘reasonable’ changes to your website to allow disabled people to use it,” a spokeswoman said.

Under the Act, companies can be fined up to £5,000. No cases have been brought in Britain, but under a similar law in Australia, the organisers of the Sydney Olympics were fined $20,000.

Odeon denies that its website is in breach of the Act. “We don’t take the Disability Discrimination Act lightly,” it said. “We are constantly updating our website.”

Mr Somerville has designed “accessible” versions of the National Rail, Hutton inquiry and BBC News websites. He said: “National Rail have been much better. They said they would let my site stay up until they relaunch their site in October.”

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