EMAIL addresses belonging to a Hampshire university have appeared in leaked files from an adultery website.

Of the 917 UK university email addresses found in hacked data from the Ashley Madison website, the University of Portsmouth appeared most often.

Hundreds of teachers, academics, doctors and lawyers have been discovered in the 39 million leaked accounts that were revealed as part of a major hack on the website run by Toronto-based Avid Life Media.

It comes as a £368m lawsuit has been launched against ALM by two Canadian law firms on behalf of Canadians who signed up to the site and whose personal information has since been disclosed to the public.

But ALM does not verify customer’s emails so it is possible to register with someone else’s email address.

Addresses of notable politicians including former police minister Damian Green, a married father-of-two, and SNP MP Michelle Thomson have been found in the database but both have denied any knowledge of the dating site.

The hack was carried out by a group calling itself ‘The Impact Team’ as part of a plan to out “cheating dirtbags”.

The group alleges the website is a scam that creates fake female profiles to encourage more men to use its services.

Data has been released into the ‘dark web’ – a part of the internet that requires special software and authorisation to access.

Ashley Madison has released a statement on its website saying it is working with police to investigate the data breaches.

So far the University of Portsmouth has not responded to the Southern Daily Echo’s request for a comment.