A man has won damages of £750 from an internet company after he was sent a single unsolicited email.

Gordon Dick, an electronic marketing specialist, launched a civil case against Transcom after it sent him an unwanted email on an address that was known only to one company. His case is the first time a British court has set a level of compensation for spam.

It is also the first time that a court in Britain has awarded compensation to an individual complaining about spam, which accounts for three quarters of all emails sent in the UK.

'The courts have shown they are sensitive to putting right these misdemeanours, and the small claims procedures are ideally suited to take low-cost legal action,' said Dick.

Dick, 30, says he was confident of winning the case because he knew the offending spammer had his email address on a mailing list and he had not given permission for it to be handed out.

He says he would have been happy with an apology from Transcom, the firm that breached the anti-spam laws. But he says it responded to his complaint in bullish fashion and told him to go to court if he was not happy.

He did, and was awarded damages in a small claims case at Edinburgh sheriff court.

When he returned to court recently after Transcom failed to pay him, he was also awarded expenses of more than £600.

Dick is now planning to enforce collection of the sum, and urged other people irritated by unwanted emails to take the same action.

He began the case last summer, and has since set up his own web site, www.scotchspam.org.uk, offering advice on how to take legal action, and including a pro forma letter of complaint to send to the spammers.

Dick told the court that his address had been harvested from an email group of which he was a member. The message he received was sent to 72,000 people.