Residents in a quiet East Yorkshire village have been sent “obscene and targeted” letters from an anonymous sender.
Locals in the village of Shiptonthorpe told the BBC they had been “terrorised” by the letters for the past two years.
Sophie – not her real name – told the broadcaster that she had received a letter in December 2022 and reported it to the police. She was trying to become a ward councillor at the time.
“It was vile, I ripped it up, I couldn’t believe where it had come from or why I’d received it," she said.
“It was accusing me of what you could call being a loose woman. It said the only way I would ever get anywhere within politics would be if I was to perform unspeakable things to men.”
Other letters posted on social media contain comments such as “everyone agrees you should rot in hell” and “hope cancer finds you very soon”.
More than 25 letters have been sent to at least 10 people since January 2022, according to MailOnline.
Humberside Police has carried inquiries into some of the incidents, according to the broadcaster.
Another letter sent to the woman’s partner urged him to stop her from “roaming” and was signed “from a caring dear friend”.
He said: “I was frightened. I was worried that anybody would approach her because I didn’t know who else had knowledge of this letter.”
Another resident complained that a “cloud of vitriol” had fallen over Shiptonthorpe, saying the anonymous writer had brought “poison to this village”.
The situation is similar to that depicted in the film Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Coleman, in which residents in the West Sussex village of Littlehampton were sent malicious letters.
