Douglas Council says its leader was the victim of email spoofing.

Emails were received by Isle of Man Today's newsroom and Manx Radio purporting to be from Claire Wells.

But when contacted she said she never sent them.

Click here to read yesterday's story about it.

Now the council has issued a statement about the issue. While it says that Cllr Wells didn't send the email, but hasn't given any details of the 'spoofing'.

We have now asked whether the identify of the 'spoofer' has been discovered and, if so, who it is.

'Douglas Borough Council can confirm that its council leader did not send e-mails to island media outlets about a suggested emergency meeting, nor has a vulnerability been detected in the local authority’s IT system,' the statement reads.

‘There has, however, been a case of “email spoofing”, where cybercriminals use deception to appear as another person.

‘These spoofed emails have, unfortunately, managed to deceive one of the targeted news providers into believing that a clearly fake email may have actually been genuine or that the council’s system had been allegedly "hacked".

‘Following investigation, the actual origination of the fake emails has been identified and Douglas Borough Council is receiving advice with a view to taking action.

‘The next full meeting of the council is due to go ahead next week as scheduled.'