A parenting website run by eight mothers part-time in North London was forced to apologise to a childcare guru yesterday and pay a five-figure sum to settle a libel claim.

Mumsnet.com handed over the cash to Gina Ford, the author whose strict, nononsense approach to childcare has made her famous, after site members posted allegedly defamatory comments about her.

The agreement still leaves Ms Ford with a substantial legal bill, estimated at six figures, because the payment does not cover all her costs. Meanwhile, the Mumsnet website — which she tried briefly to close — remains up and running.

At one point Mumsnet’s internet provider was also targeted by Ms Ford’s lawyers, with the warning that it was also liable for any libellous postings.

Faced with the threats, Mumsnet opted in August to ban all discussion about Ms Ford’s controversial methods.

Mumsnet is visited by 650,000 people a month. It receives 15,000 comments a day, which Justine Roberts, its founder, said made it “impossible to monitor unless you have eyes and ears everywhere”.

Ms Ford’s The Contented Little Baby Book has sold more than half a million copies since it was published in 1999. It advocates strict feeding and sleeping routines for babies, leaving them to cry rather than breaking the regimen. The approach had provoked strong views and some personal insults from Mumsnet members.

Mumsnet said that it “apologises to Gina Ford for the comments made about her by some Mumsnet users”, and added that while it would now allow discussion of the childcare expert’s methods it “will not tolerate personal attacks”.

But the site admitted no liability.

Ms Ford’s lawyers, Foot Anstey, welcomed the statement, saying that their client was satisfied because “all she ever wanted was an apology” for what were described as “vicious libels” — postings made by Mumsnet members attacking her and her methods.

Mumsnet had hoped to go to court, believing it to be a test case over freedom of speech on the internet, but felt it could not afford to risk losing.

Its lawyers, Finer, Stephens, Innocent, had argued that it was not a conventional editor or publisher simply because it could not monitor all the comments being made.

Mrs Roberts said that she had made a submission to the Law Commission in the hope of revising libel laws as they apply to the internet. She said: “It’s not clear to us how far a site is protected even if they take down controversial material.”

Under current libel laws there are few exemptions for websites that carry third-party material hosted by others.

A site has to prove that it does not act in any way as editor, by moderating postings, or as a publisher, by disseminating them, and has been taking reasonable care to be able to say it cannot be accused of being party to a libel. Internet service providers can also be sued.

Mrs Roberts said: “We are very relieved that this is over. This agreement means parents have been given the freedom to discuss one of the major techniques in the parenting world. I don’t think Gina Ford has done herself much good among her target audience.”

Ms Ford, a former maternity nurse from Scotland, was married at 19 but split from her husband. She has no children.

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