BNP paper delivery sparks target fears

A far-right political party delivered its newspapers to residents in East Grinstead last week, leading to fears it could be targeting the town.

The party's newspaper, The Voice of Freedom, was dropped in letterboxes along West Street, and a spokesman claimed they had been invited by residents. Mr Rick Louis, a salesman who lives in the road, said he had been annoyed by having it delivered to his home as he would be the last person to be interested.

He said: "This area has never been like that because I have been here for 10 years. They have obviously been targeting this area. My daughter goes to school here and it worried me that they are dropping this stuff through letter boxes. What they do is hide behind this sort of thing. They just come out with total bigotry."

Mr Louis added that he had spoken to other residents in the road and they had expressed similar views on the newspaper.

"I asked my neighbours if they had received it and they said it was one to just put in the bin straightaway. I know everyone has got their opinions and everything but I think it is a bit blatant to just put it through people's letterboxes"

The newspaper, which is normally sold for 60p, details party policies such as funding "generous" schemes to return immigrants to their land of ethnic origin.

Dr Phill Edwards, the party's national press officer, said: "We are a political party which responds to requests from the public so if they ask for our presence we will come."

Dr Edwards said residents should be happy they did not have to pay for the publication.

"Well, they are very lucky aren't they? They are very fortunate to get a free copy. I wish they'd give me a free newspaper. You in the media have misrepresented the BNP, so it's no surprise that people would misunderstand what we are on about. We conduct our affairs in exactly the same way as any of the other parties do. There's something deep-seated in people's minds about the BNP. It's wicked and it's shameful. We get a lot of black people voting for the BNP."

Kent and Sussex Courier