A DISABLED football fan has won a High Court battle to prevent the story of his life being made into a film without his permission.

Paul Hodgson, a lifelong Darlington fan, wrote his book, Flipper’s Side, in 2000, to describe his devotion to the Quakers and to challenge the stereotype of a wheelchair user.

However, Mr Hodgson, who is known as Flipper to his friends, took screenwriter Andrew Isaac to court after he noticed similarities between his book and a script, Down Among the Dead Men, Mr Isaac had penned.

Mr Isaac was at one time involved in a project to make a film of Mr Hodgson’s life, but denied that his script was an “adaptation” of Flipper’s Side.

Despite similarities to the book, he said the script was an original work based on his own creative input.

However, yesterday Judge Colin Birss QC ruled that Mr Isaac’s script was, in part, directly or indirectly, copied from Flipper’s Side.

Central to his ruling was the description of a Darlington chant used when playing arch-rivals Hartlepool United which urged fans to “shoot the Poolie scum”.

The chant is described in both Mr Hodgson’s book and Mr Isaac’s script.

Judge Birss told the court: “I reject Mr Isaac’s testimony that he did not read Flipper’s Side. I did not find him to be a credible witness in this respect.

“He had access to Flipper’s Side and the use and location of the Darlington FC chant seems to me to show that Mr Isaac used Flipper’s Side as a source.

“Moreover, the similarities in terms of detail are too close to be explicable any other way.”

He acknowledged that Down Among the Dead men did contain scenes which were of Mr Isaac’s own creation.

However, he added: “Overall, it is more likely than not that the Down Among the Dead Men script was copied, in part, from Flipper’s Side, directly or indirectly.

“The similarities between them are, in my judgement, the result of copying.

“Having read Flipper’s Side and the script, as I have, the elements reproduced are not merely a generic story about a disabled football fan, but are recognisable as part of the particular story told in Flipper’s Side.”

“Flipper’s Side recounts Mr Hodgson’s struggle to overcome preconceptions about his disability, his family life and experiences at school, at work and in community care, all against the background of his love for Darlington FC.

In August, Mr Hodgson screened a trailer at The Northern Echo Darlington Arena of his own screen adaptation of Flipper’s Side, which he hopes to use to attract funding to produce a full-length film.