The Royal Air Force Charitable Trust received an unwelcome imitation when Green Party candidate Kevin Lister cloned its Air Tattoo website in an attempt to deter visitors to the show.

The Air Tattoo is to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this weekend at RAF Fairford but the event could have suffered from a lack of attendance had the spoof site not been taken offline.

The Royal Air Force Charitable Trust Enterprises (RAFCTE) is the trading subsidiary of the Trust.

The Trust’s spokesman Richard Arquati said: “Two weeks ago we received reports that RAFCTE’s website had effectively been cloned, but altered to include a number of false statements wrongly attributed to the Company’s Chief Executive.

“In order to protect the interests of the Company, its donors and sponsors, its parent charity and, ultimately, the beneficiaries of that charity, notwithstanding the many thousands of people who plan to enjoy the event on July 17-18, we required the website to be taken down.  This was duly done.”

Lister, a Green party candidate for the Cotswolds during this year’s election linked his blog entitled ‘Kev’s Climate Column’ to the cloned site at http://www.rafcte.org.uk/airtattoo.htm under the heading “the last airshow ever”.

The site reportedly posted a falsified statement by the RAF Charitable Trust’s chief executive Timothy Prince stating that this year’s would be the last Tattoo and offered refunds to anyone planning to attend.

Lister was unavailable to comment but on his blog admits to being a “failed environmental campaigner”. The 47 year old is also a maths teacher and is a member of Airport Watch and Biofuel Watch.