‘Conserva-babe’ hits back at Wiki founder

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is in a whole lot of trouble. Before he used his website to dump his Canadian girlfriend with the message "I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden", he should have checked out her relationship history. Marsden, 33, an opinionated 'Conserva-babe' political commentator, who had to be escorted out of the Fox studio by security guards after she was dismissed from the late night talk show Red Eye for 'erratic behaviour' in May 2007, has a past littered with spats and obsessions.

In 1995, she made unproven rape accusations against her boyfriend, swimming coach Liam Donnelly, who was initially fired by the Simon Fraser University as a result. He then made counter-claims, alleging that she had been stalking him for years. He pointed to incidents where his car had been vandalised, condoms strewn in his driveway and his phone number advertised as a sex line in campus bathrooms. After the investigation, the president of the university, who had backed Marsden, stood down, and Patricia O’Hagan, a member of staff, revealed that Marsden had called her over 400 times and left notes saying "love from your daughter who loves you a lot".

In 2004 Marsden pleaded guilty to criminal harassment charges. Her former lover, Vancouver radio host Michael Morgan, had started seeing another woman. Marsden responded by contacting his new girlfriend, his sister, his son and his business partner, and rigging his computer so that his emails were sent to her. The court also heard some of the threatening phone messages she had left. Marsden was given a conditional discharge and one year’s probation.

Wales, in contrast with some of the men who have spurned Marsden, has got off lightly so far. Marsden found the shirt and jersey that Wales had discarded during a night they had spent together, and put them up for auction on Ebay, adding the message that Wales' way of splitting-up was "such a classy move that I was inspired to do something equally classy myself". Marsden wrote that she had to wash the clothes, twice, with extra-strength detergent and had previously locked them away in a cupboard "to prevent the ongoing terrorism of my olfactory senses".

Wales's stench hasn’t harmed the sale: with a week left in which to bid, the sweater is listed at $857, the T-shirt a whopping $12,200. But the affair has reignited questions about Wikipedia's ethics. He was said to have influenced the editing process of a negative story about Marsden after the couple met in February.