A “cloud of vitriol” hangs over an East Yorkshire village amid a two-year campaign of anonymous poison pen letters that have caused some people who lived there to move away, they have said.
The “personal, obscene and targeted” letters have caused chaos in the quiet village of Shiptonthorpe over the last two years, leaving residents upset, frightened and unable to know who they can trust.
Police have carried out inquiries over the insulting letters, which did not contain specific threats but included wishing cancer on one resident and calling another a “cow”.
The episode has echoes of a similar campaign of malicious notes in the West Sussex village of Littlehampton in the spring of 1920, which went on to be raised in the House of Commons and inspired the 2023 film Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Colman.
One woman told the BBC she was “astonished” to receive a letter in December 2022 accusing her of using sexual favours to try to become a ward councillor.
“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.”
The writer said the woman should be “turned out on the Beverley Westwood pasture with the rest of the cows”, she told the BBC. “It was just vile.”
The woman received four letters in total and reported them to the police, who said they had carried out inquiries, including reviewing CCTV, but had not been able to ascertain who the perpetrator was.
Letters have also been sent to the woman’s partner, urging him to stop her from “roaming”. 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.”
The letter was signed: “From a caring dear friend.”
In another letter seen by the BBC, an anonymous writer told a villager: “I hope cancer finds you.”
One resident said people had left the village, which is home to 500 people, due to the letters. He said: “A cloud of vitriol has fallen over Shiptonthorpe. It is a wonderful village with wonderful people, but someone has brought poison to this village.”
He added: “People come here for a quiet, tranquil, community-spirted life and that’s being damaged badly by one or two devilish people.”
• This article was amended on 23 September 2024. An earlier version referred in one instance to Shiptonthorpe as a “hamlet”; by size and amenities, including the presence of a church, it is a village.
