Lottery fund seeks police protection after bomb threats

A National Lottery fund vilified in a newspaper's campaign will demand police protection because its staff have had bomb threats. Security guards are being hired after a "black feather" death threat and human excrement was sent in the post.

Lady Brittan, wife of the former European commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, chairs the National Lottery Community Fund. She has been told she will be killed if she "keeps on helping immigrants".

Scotland Yard is already investigating four racist letters. Thousands of phone calls and letters have flooded in since the Daily Mail attacked the lottery fund's £340,000 grant to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, which campaigns for asylum-seekers.

The paper urged readers to vent "justified anger" about the grant and printed Lady Brittan's name and office address. One hate letter warned: "You're a f*****g stupid bitch. Do you want England to be taken over by Immigrants? You keep on helping immigrants you will be killed. Nice Car, hope there isn't a bomb under it. BANG!"

Others, enclosing Daily Mail cuttings, warn Lady Brittan she should be "shot" and "eradicated" from society. One hopes a female relative is "brutally robbed or raped". Another tells Lady Brittan, whose husband is Jewish, to "go back to Israel". She had "no right to take an English name and live here".

The Daily Mail said last night it "would never condone the sending of hate mail or other threats and while we note that the community fund has received only a handful of such letters, we abhor such behaviour". A spokesman said its campaign "highlighting the activities of the community fund ... had the wholehearted support of the Home Secretary."