The influential PR Firm Bell Pottinger, which has been caught in the midst of a high level lobbying investigation, has been linked to edits on the wikipedia website which bolstered the credentials of their client, prostate cancer specialist Professor Roger Kirby, and linked his experience to Abdelbaset Al Megrahi.

Bell Pottinger staff had been caught on camera this week boasting of enabling foreign office policy changes on behalf of clients due to their claimed access at the highest levels of Government and monarchy in the UK.

Yesterday ten accounts linked to Bell Pottinger were closed by wikipedia, following the personal intervention of the site’s founder, Jimmy Wales.

The Bureau of Investigative journalism website reported that edits made to the site by a user traced to Bell Pottinger included editing of the entries for Professor Kirby and his firm, The Prostate Centre, Bell Pottinger clients.

“The user added Mr Kirby into a separate page on ‘prostatectomy’ as a notable expert, and edited the entry on Lockerbie bomber Abdulbasset al-Megrahi to include comments made by Kirby about Megrahi’s cancer,” it added.

James Thomlinson, head of digital at Bell Pottinger, confirmed that the account in question was “one of a number of accounts that the digital team have used to edit Wikipedia articles.”

“I would like to point out that while we have worked for a number of clients we have never done anything illegal, he added.

Whilst affirming that Bell Pottinger had “never added something that is a lie or hasn't been published elsewhere,” he confirmed it had been asked by its clients to post falsehoods on the site.

“If we have been asked to include things about clients that are untrue we have always said no and pointed to Wikipedia's strict guidelines.”

This is not the first time wikipedia entries in relation to the Pan Am 103 case have been systematically edited. In 2007 Dr Ludwig De Braekeleer published an extensive report documenting how the entries relating to the Lockerbie event had been methodically altered by US based intelligence services, whose involvement had extended to positioning a family liaison operative close to the families.

Several entries in respect of the atrocity which had referenced news articles and investigations published by The Scotsman newspaper and The Firm now no longer appear on the site.